I bought a pair of these. They cost me an arm and a leg, which is a shame as I need my legs to hold my feel to put my shoes on. But they are beautiful.

Although the first time I wore then they caused me a matching set of life-threatening blisters. These got better and I wore them again. And all was well.

I wore them again yestarday and a completely new set of incredible blisters have appeared.

They are nothing if they are not persistant. Once I break them in they will be the comfiest shoes in Christendom. Until then then are like wearing the Taliban on your feet.

But they are beautiful.

I don't like things that look old which aren't. But I like this. Not the crappy 'handwritten' typeface, but the bottle and the whisky and the price. £8.99 for 200ml for a 16 year old single malt. (This one is Talisker actually.) You'll find it and others like it on the 'damaged' shelf in the whisky shop on Old Compton Street. There are lots of different distillaries in there so if you are experimenting with which whisky you like, this is the way.

We have just added the lovely Hannah to our website. She's the newset fish, started on Monday. And while I was looking at her profile page on our site I saw Phil's and Eve's* photos.

Separated at birth or what?

I am middleaged. I am having a midlife crisis. Other people buy Harley Davidsons. I bought a Gibson Holy Explorer. It is beautiful. I have been playing AC-DC tracks on it. It's a Whole Lotta Rosie.

It's back

After a couple of months in dry dock at Captain Francesco's base deep in the Lewisham System, the 3fish Indperial Star Destroyer is back where it belongs; on display in the 3fish window. Swing by and have a look, you won't be disappointed.

But don't get cocky kid.

Actually MS Word has a lot of good points. As a wordprocessor, it can't be faulted. Well it can, but that's just me being churlish. As a design tool, however, it is the worst piece of crap ever coded.

That is why I love, and almost universally use, OmWriter.

It's simple. It's beautiful. It doesn't try to help you. (MS paperclip asks: you look like you are creating a bulleted list, shall I format it for you? I reply: NO FUCK OFF.)

It's just a simple way to marshall your thoughts to write clearly and simply.

And it's coming out for iPad soon.

I'm getting it for that too.

OmWriter

Our lovely Em has a claim to fame...

She once sat on The Princess Michael of Kent's Lap

She did up her cardigan - that's TPMoK did up Em's cardigan, not visa versa

It was after she did a dance for her as a bird

She is sacked

Cigdle (pronounced Cheedle) is back in Istanbul but still working remotely for 3fish. In fact, she's doing some great work for Beachcroft that we are presenting next week. That said, she is more pregnant that is feasible. Have a look... I'm sure she won't thank me for this photo. Sorry Cigdle.

R

Last February Duncan, who shares our studio, came round to my house with his lovely girlf Andrea. Andrea is a brilliant singer and I had given them a copy of a song I had been working on for a couple of months, but had reached a dead-end on. Andrea sang her heart out and left with me promising I'd mix the song and give her a copy.

Ten months later I've finally managed to get an end result I'm happy with. Not because of her singing but because of my orchestration... 

Anyway, whatever the reason, it's done now and here it is.

I hope you like it. I'm dead pleased actually.

01 All For You (Feat Andrea Semas).mp3 (13.59 mb)

Our Christmas party... nuf said.

I lost my Japanese knife. I had owned it less than 24 hours. If you find it, can you return it to me c/o 3fish?

Thanks

My eldest son was 19 a few weeks back and he told me that he wanted an Amazon Kindle. I went online, but there was a two-three week waiting list as everyone wanted one. I ordered one and told him he'd have to wait. Then, last Thursday it turned up and Sam came down from Oxford, where he is at university, to collect it and see me and Claire and his brother Felix.

It was a good day, but what really made it special from a design perspective is how beautiful the Kindle actually is. It is slim as a cream cracker, the screen is unbelievable contrasty, the battery lasts a month, it allows you to sync where you are in the book you are reading between it, your iPhone, your iPad, and your Mac or PC.

It is truly a lovely piece of kit. 

I have asked my wife to buy me one for Christmas.

After nearly slicing my finger off on some Japanese plaster packaging, I thought I'd go one better and actually buy a Japanese thing that is meant to be dangerous. 

Well not exactly. You see I really like penknives. I live in Hackney so I don't carry the bigger ones I own around as I'll end up banged up like a kipper quicker than you can say knife if I ever got caught with them, but I do own quite a lot.

And this is my latest purchase. It's from SCP (www.scp.co.uk) and comes from Osaka in Japan. It's a carbon steel carpenter's knife and is stupidly sharp. It's 15cm long fully extended and not actually that specially made, but it's a super-functional piece and I can't see it falling apart for the foreseeable.

But what I really liked about it was its box. First because the illustration is not the same as the actual knife. And second because the cheap three-colour print is beautiful.

My son is learning to speak Japanese so I'll ask him what it says. If I find out I'll let you know.

And if you see a good penknife, buy it for me, I'll let you have the money when I see you.

A few days ago I bought a pack of Hello Kitty plasters. Ace or what? And this morning I thought I'd have a look at them. 

Unfortunately I cut my finger opening the box.

How ironic is that?

Hey the people who know us, or work with us, will know that, as well as designing stuff and fixing our Macs, I write a bit. Mostly marketing copy, but the odd bit of fiction.

In fact, last year I had my first short story published to great critical indifference. But not one to be put off easily, that didn't stop me and my second story is in print and available on Amazon. In fact I even get a mention in the review section on the Amazon page which describes the story being 'a stand out tale'. Ha ha.

It's published by Glasshouse Books, so Google them and have a look. Or check out the Amazon page.

Now, where did I leave my typewriter?

Made by Matt for Alastair: felt Alastair doll

Made by Duncan for James: electric thump piano

Made by Nat for Chris: I hate cushions cushion

Made by Di for Ricky: ginger threesome

Made by Ricky for Di: balsa wood lamp

Made by Christian for Paul: a gansta P Riddy tee

It was our Xmas lunch yesterday and we all had to give each other a present. But to break with tradition a little and to add a bit of extra fun we decided that everyone had to make their present. The results were fantastic, truly witty, clever, beautiful and thoughtful. But most of all: creative. I'll post them all up here for you to enjoy one by one. Cigdem, James, Alastair and Nat haven't bought their pictures in yet, so I'll post them tomorrow.

Here's number one, made by James, for Matt: a gay Airfix Spitfire

I have just attended a seminar on diversity in design and whilst it turned into a seminar on ethnicity, not diversity, I did learn some pretty interesting facts:

93% of people who work in design in the UK are white*

68% are male

60% are younger than 40 years old

65% earn less than £20,000 a year

Now I don't know what constitutes * 'design in the UK' but these figures are awful. We all have a duty to try to change these statistics and make design a more equal place and a fairer place for everyone.

I'll let you know what we plan to do to help.

At 3fish we have a pretty clear view of what makes good design. We aren't minimalist, but we do kind of believe that form follows function. The issue is that if you want your 'function' to be 'everything under the sun' you end up with something like this.

(BTW, this is a real Swiss Army knife available in the States for $999.)

Why did I let anyone talk me into this? Transporting a shed on the top of my executive motor? It was a disaster waiting to happen. In fact, how Di and I managed to get from The Old Kent Road to the 3fish studios without killing anyone was a miracle, But we did.

All we have to do now is paint it pink and build it. (It's going to masquerade as a seaside hut and we think pink is the best colour for that.) When it's done, we'll post more pictures.

Oh, and if I ever get around to cleaning my car, I'll let you know as well.

It's 10.30am and I'm jumping around like a little giddy school girl. Why? Well it all comes down to QR Codes. QR Codes are a kind of barcode destined to one day phase out barcodes or maybe work alongside them, who knows. They're currently used in Japan and when you get a QR scanner you can read the codes that point you to websites and other sorts of information. But I can hear you say but i need to carry another device around how lame whats the point!? Well you don't! You can use your current phone and camera to read the codes and then redirect you to whatever the info is. The applications for this stuff seems endless! Can you imagine unfortunately being in hospital and then having your details placed in a QR code and emailing that code to the doctor he scans it and maybe all of you medical info comes up onscreen, obviously for that scenario some sort of security will be needed, but could even be used for test results and all sorts it's just insanely excitably excit ing! If you have an iPhone I recommend the QR app its ace, and for you to test it all heres the image I made!

The draws have been made for the 3fish conker championship 2009 and we kick off this lunchtime.

We have six matches in the first round and Matt gets a by as Nat doesn't want to play. Then the semis and it's a three-man final. How that's going to work, I have no idea. 

I'll keep you posted of the results.

Mallory may be back in Baltimore studying for her degree, but she's not forgotten. Especially when she emails and tells us about her new pet. Lucy the sqrl (American pronunciation) is an orphan and Mal stepped in to rescue the her. I'm not sure we'll ever get to see Lucy in the flesh over here as petpassports are not available for rodents at the moment. But, hey, that might all change now Obama is in. Wait and see.