Yes, Bristol Festival of Photography is here once more, and there’s a couple of exciting events we think you should know about.

Firstly, Bristol Lomo Club are helping to run this year’s Lomo Show. 29 amazing lomography images have been selected and will soon be adorning the walls of the Grain Barge. The show runs from 16th May til 3rd June so go and check it out, and if you fancy celebrating with the exhibitors, there’s opening night drinks from 7.30pm on Wednesday 16th May.

Secondly, Guerrilla Galleries is back again. Two years ago, team loveofit encouraged you all to reclaim those urban spaces and turn them into your own gallery. Stick, hang and fix your photographs anywhere you like – the only limit is your imagination!

Bushcraft

Sat 28- Sun 29 April, £90 including two lunches

A hands-on, fun weekend learning essential survival skills that really work. Suitable for novice and intermediate students, families and anyone wanting expert but friendly tuition grounded in environmental awareness and sustainability.

Learn how to leave no trace and make friction fire kits, start fires in wet and windy conditions, cook on an open fire, make emergency shelters, forage for resources and master early survival scenarios, amongst other skills.

Natural navigation

Sat 5 – Sun 6 May. £90 including two lunches.

This will be an energetic and enjoyable treat with a huge bag of take-away skills, from shadow sticks and sun compasses, to finding north and measuring distances.

The course will make sure you know how to use a map and compass before moving on to explain the art of natural navigation, using the Sun, Moon, stars and planets. Then we will explore on foot, discovering clues in nature, plants, animals, shadows, and the wind. You will be able to ‘read’ the countryside in a whole new way.

You will learn how to relocate when lost, how to measure distances and time with nothing but your hands and feet. How to find north when clouds cover most of the sky. A course that really delivers a wealth of knowledge and skills.

Click here to find out more and book.

Malcolm Handoll specialises in eco-survival in the north of Scotland, teaching families and adventurers skills that really work. Malcolm is one of only a handful of people in this country who can teach how to navigate using only the environment and natural features. He also has a wealth of knowledge on Stone Age living, including the recently unearthed Neolithic ‘temple complex’ in Orkney.

Read Malcolm’s features for theloveofit here:

Have a power off weekend

101 things to do without electricity

Edinburgh to London: fast and free

Chris had found the perfect location – a row of trees located in the middle of Windrush Square in Brixton. Armed with lovely Saturday afternoon sunshine, a bag of pre-strung cranes and a rather wobbly stool, we origami bombed one of the trees.

At first, we got a few odd glances of people. And then people started stopping and taking photos. Once we were finished, we hung around for a while, taking photos and chatting to a few people who’d stopped to look at the tree. We hung a visitors book in the tree so people could leave comments, and went to find a cup of tea to warm ourselves up.

I went back the next day and the visitors book was full, and even standing there for 15 minutes, there were loads of people stopping to look at it or photograph it, so it’s lovely to know that people appreciated it. Chris has been back since and said that a few people have even added their cranes to the tree (nicely making up for the few cranes that have gone missing since the weekend!). Sadly the visitors book has gone missing, but a replacement is now up for any new comments.

So if you’re in the area, go and have a look at the tree – it won’t be round for long…

• Monster-making

• An origami-zoo

• A cosy-corner

• Doodle-fun

• Games

• Music

• Book-swapping

• Woolly-hat-treasure hunt

• craft workshops

• Tea & cup cakes & more!

Bring your own picnic, blanket & sense of childish abandon.

GET INVOLVED!

If you’d like to get involved, we’re looking for volunteers to help serve drinks and snacks at the cafe and crafty types to help run workshops. Email us and we’ll put you in touch with Emma at Trinity.

Otherwise, simply bring along your knitting and a spare ball of wool and show a stranger how to knock together a scarf; bring along Scrabble and challenge a picnicker to a game or tuck the Sunday papers under your arm and share the supplements out. After all, it’s cold outside, what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than  to cosy up on a picnic blanket, share some Scotch eggs and meet new people.

So which is your favourite?

The 6th Bristol Storytelling Festival will begin in two weeks time, offering 16 events over 11 days to celebrate and enjoy the magic of storytelling in Bristol.

The full programme is available online and printed flyers are making their way to public places across the city as we speak. This year will use more venues than ever before including old favourites and brand new ones, with events from early in the morning until late at night. The line up includes a sparkling constellation of spellbinding storytellers offering stories from here, there and everywhere to suit young and old ears alike. So do you best to get to one or more the events, and please spread the word to others who might be interested…

Finally to whet your appetite for storytelling before the Festival, the Storytelling Cafe is running this Wednesday 11th January, 8pm at La Ruca cafe on Gloucester Road.

Go along to tell a tale, sing a song or just listen and enjoy. Guest performer is Darren Hoskins. Food and drink available.

Valentines Day usually means a romantic meal, the back seats of the cinema or a cosy night in. That is if you are already in a couple. But what about the thousands of people still dreaming of finding their soulmate? Well, Wacky Nation, the off the wall events company, has created a match made in heaven where singletons can have a really fun evening whilst mixing with the opposite sex without the pressures normally associated with dating.

The Valentines Rock Paper Scissors at V-Shed on 14th February will take the concept of blind dating and speed dating to the next level. Instead of nervous chatting up or protracted flirting, participants can mingle with the sub text of playing the cult game of rock paper scissors.

The idea of Rock Paper Scissors is for two people to go head to head using one hand to imitate either a rock (clenched fist), a piece of paper (flat hand) or a pair of scissors (two fingers in a V shape). Rock beats (blunts) scissors, paper beats (wraps) rock and scissors beats (cuts) paper. Perhaps surprisingly the game is not just about luck and avoiding elbow cramp. It’s very similar to poker with a lot of bluffing and putting out mixed signals.

The game is usually played to decide an argument e.g. who pays for the next round of drinks or who does the cooking but at the Valentines night event there will be romantic subtext. There will be an official contest limited to 64 people but the main event will be the Street rock paper scissor challenge where participants must challenge everyone else to a game of rock paper scissors staking fake money. Whoever has amassed the most fake money at the end of the night takes home a small prize. But unlike other events around the year, there will be a strict rule that competitors can only challenge a member of the opposite sex.

Event organiser and co-founder of Wacky Nation Sally Raynes commented: ‘For our other Rock Paper Scissors events, the emphasis is on winning or at least looking as if competitors know how to win. But at the Valentines Rock Paper Scissors we are encouraging entrants to challenge the opposite sex to a game which we hope will be a prelude to something more long lasting. Rock Paper Scissors is a really fun and addictive game which gets the heart racing because it is tense and nerve-jingling especially with money at sake, albeit fake. It is also a great ice-breaker. In fact all the pressure will be on worrying what symbol to use so once our entrants have played a few games, chatting someone up will be a doddle, even for people less confident. Whatever happens everyone can at least experience several hours of fun and excitement but hopefully by the end of the evening the unofficial 4th symbol of a kiss will be the most commonly played between competitors!’

If you would like to find out more or register to take part visit www.wackynation.com or www.ukrockpaperscissorschampionships.com. The contest will run from… with a disco at the end of the night.

Rock Paper Scissors Tips:

1. Men are more likely to throw a rock on their first throw – if you play a bloke, throw a paper first

2. Women are more likely to play paper on their first throw – if you play a woman, throw scissors first.

3. Belie your physique e.g. if your big, scary and muscular, throw paper

4. Scissors is statistically the least thrown – therefore paper is statistically the safest throw, but not if everyone follows tip no. 2.

5. For experts only, change your throw at the last minute e.g. twitch your fingers to signal a scissors before reverting to a rock. This is called ‘Shadowing.’

6. Wear sunglasses to prevent your opponent from studying your eyes

7. Study your opponent’s eyes (if they aren’t wearing sunglasses). Are they looking up to the right or are the eyes glazed over. They could be about to throw scissors.

8. Taunt the opponent and try reverse psychology! Tell them what you think they will throw and they may throw the opposite.

9. Finally, if you’re a bloke and you win buy your female opponent a drink

10. If you’re a women and you lose, demand a drink off your male opponent!

About the organisers: Wacky Nation (www.wackynation.com) is undoubtedly Britain’s craziest events company. Their aim is simple: to invent or re-introduce wackiness for the British public to experience and further the popularity of alternative sports and exercise, such as backward running and rock paper scissors (more to follow). With the London Olympics getting closer they also want to remind people of the fun events that exist where you don’t have to be incredibly fit or adhere to strict diets in order to become a UK or World Champion. They have already organised backward running races in London and Manchester as well as several rock paper scissor tournaments. Whilst their website is arguably the authoritative source for all unusual and unique sports, contests and races. They have also written a book (title: Wacky Nation) raving about 50 of Britain’s craziest contests.

We’re trying out the idea of a regular (2nd Saturday of each month) ride, suitable for most riders, which gives us a chance to get to know each other and explore some of the cycle routes that are easily accessible from central Bristol.

A couple of us are working out routes, generally alternating between heading east or west. Suggestions for routes/others getting involved with planning and leading rides are welcome-the aim is to have a consistent meeting time and place and the route can be tweaked on the day as required.

These regular social rides also provide an opportunity to discuss/propose ideas for future rides with others from the group (all members are free to propose/discuss meetups themselves).

For more info see http://www.meetup.com/bristolcyclists/

The plan is to run these as a regular social night every 3rd Thursday of the month through 2012, excluding August and December.

We’ll have a selection of short-play fun/sociable games/mix ups (e.g. Boggle, Jenga, ‘Devil Bunny…’, Snakes+Ladders/trivia cards mix up etc.) and some Origami paper/instructions.

Nothing too serious/complicated, all welcome for chat and sociable games playing. If you have a favourite game that you’d like to play, you’re welcome to bring it and we’ll give it a go…

For more info see http://www.meetup.com/optibris

I think it had reached a natural end – most of the tags were written on and the sign was looking a little worse for wear.

But thankyou thankyou thankyou to all the people who’ve written their resolutions on the luggage tags. I’ve just spent an hour looking through them all as I detangled them all. I’m going to scan some of my favourites over the coming days, and then I’ll put them all into an album – it looks like there are about 500 of them in total, so it’s going to be hard to pick…