This site is not about sitemaps or xml, it is a collection of random articles

No. 24 in a UK alternative chart

2026-09-11T14:33:00.788+01:00

This Window rises to No. 24 in a UK alternative chart

Today marks another quiet but powerful milestone for This Window, the long‑running experimental project that continues to defy categorisation and expectation. As of this morning, the project has climbed to No. 24 in a UK alternative chart, driven entirely by listener plays, page visits, and genuine engagement rather than marketing machinery or playlist manipulation.

It’s the kind of achievement that feels earned — a steady, organic rise built on curiosity, loyalty, and the unmistakable pull of outsider art. For a project that has spent decades on the fringes, this chart position is a small but significant recognition of its persistence.

A further boost in attention has come from a recent video interview now available on the This Window Facebook page. The conversation offers a rare glimpse into the project’s history, motivations and ongoing creative process, giving new listeners a direct connection to the voice behind the work. The interview has already begun circulating among alternative‑music groups, adding fresh momentum to the current chart rise.

The track behind the surge: “This Is Not the Way It Should Be”

At the centre of today’s rise is the featured chart track, “This Is Not the Way It Should Be.” A slow‑burn lament built on a reggae‑influenced bassline, the song moves with a weary grace. The arrangement is stripped back to essentials: skeletal percussion, shadow‑leaning synths, and the sudden flare of an angry piano chord that cuts through the gloom like a warning.

The vocal delivery — half‑spoken, half‑sung — carries the weight of something already broken. There’s a Leonard Cohen‑like starkness to it, but the emotional tone is unmistakably This Window: bruised, unpolished and honest. It’s a track that doesn’t rush to reveal itself. It lingers, breathes, and lets the emotional damage speak in its own time.

The chart placement feels like recognition of exactly that — a song that refuses polish in favour of truth. In a landscape dominated by compressed, hyper‑edited pop, “This Is Not the Way It Should Be” stands out precisely because it sounds lived‑in.

This Is War by This Window

A project built on persistence and reinvention

This Window began life in the 1980s UK cassette underground, operating from bedrooms, kitchens, and makeshift home studios rather than glossy commercial spaces. Over the years, the project has moved through post‑punk minimalism, lo‑fi tape collage, experimental electronics and stark, voice‑driven pieces that sit somewhere between song, spoken word and sound art.
What makes today’s chart position so striking is how it reflects that long arc: a body of work shaped by DIY ethics, analogue experimentation and a refusal to chase trends. Releases have appeared on small labels, through mail‑order, on Bandcamp and via the project’s own site — always quietly, always with a focus on the work rather than the hype.
Listeners discovering This Window in 2026 often describe the same experience: stumbling across a track that feels strangely intimate, slightly unsettling, and completely unlike anything else in the charts. That uniqueness is exactly what has carried the project from cult obscurity into a new wave of recognition.

Their Gods

This track, available as a (pre‑release) free limited edition mix, is an early preview of a forthcoming album planned for late autumn or early winter—a collection of new tracks shaped around memory, place, and the small moments that stay with you long after they’ve passed.

It’s the kind of record that feels less like a statement and more like a return: to streets you used to know, to rooms where a certain light still lingers, to the quiet turns of life that don’t announce themselves as important in the moment, yet keep echoing anyway.

Forthcoming Album: Introducing This Window

At its core, the collection gathers ideas and half‑finished projects that were never resolved, set down, and in some cases nearly forgotten across the decades. These are fragments without spectacle—never dramatic or life‑altering, but quietly significant.

The songs move through photographs that held more than what was captured, walks that changed nothing on paper but shifted something inside, sounds that arrived for a second and then became permanent. Even a fleeting encounter can become part of a lifetime, not because it lasts, but because it reshapes what you carry forward.

One track, “Their Gods,” channels that tension between power and faith, wealth and heaven, the need to measure worth without being measured by anything that can be possessed. In the lyrics, authority is claimed and influence is framed as something earned—by resources, by control, by the gods people build when they decide they don’t need anything beyond themselves.

The response is both refusal and resolve: let them measure what they want; we won’t turn away from the light.

Download this track, a shortened mix made exclusively for Reverbnation.

You need help - Here is a photo of a Pier

2026-09-09T11:30:30.250+01:00

The search for perfection is always a priority. The nearer you get to perfection the better. This quest is impossible but sometimes asking for help (thus helping yourself) gets you a little closer to your goals.

The Internet is a tool that connects you with businesses and people and smart businesses, communicate with their clients directly, elevate their online charisma, and boost their sales; they stay in front of the curve and their rivals.
All this is achievable by using the Internet to its full marketing and interaction potential. Try your hand at real search engine optimisation, look at your site and fix those broken links, update the content, sort out the keywords and phrases. Harnessing the power of the Internet to improve your website’s rank in the search engine results pages is a way to achieve your dreams.
Be more positive and proactive with your time, improve and inspire, corral your visitors and steer them towards your products. Create a cage that keeps them locked into your site; tame them so they don’t want to leave. Set your traps carefully and take money from your visitors.

Sitemap protocols allow a webmaster to inform search engines about URLs on a website that are available for crawling. A Sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs for a site and helps to show how important each page is in relation to other URLs in the web site. This allows search engines to crawl the site more intelligently and efficiently.

This image of Paignton Pier was taken with an old Pentax Espio 120mi, a point-and-shoot, mid-range, 35mm film camera. The Espio is an autofocus unit with automatic exposure settings and a built-in flash unit.

One of the most useful applications available on this model is the ‘backlight compensation’ setting, which enables you to take a photograph using natural light in the background and flash in the foreground, giving an even tone across the image. Panorama mode is included in this little package which gives a different aspect ratio from most other cameras.

It is impossible to take a perfect image with this camera but sometimes perfection is not needed— a snapshot or a moment is sometimes more effective.

Anarchy in the web design world - Please

2026-09-07T09:31:13.642+01:00

The spirit of punk should be revitalised in this prescriptive, common script, widget, cut and paste web design world. Isn't is about time we forgot the paste bit and cut and rip the internet into shreds and create an adrenaline fuelled, chaotic explosion. I think what I'm trying to say is The Internet Has Just Got Very Boring! It is time for Anarchy in the web design world - my clients are asking me to create something different.....

Anarchy in the Web Design World

We’ve spent the last decade smoothing every edge, sanding every surface, polishing every interface until the whole internet looks like it was designed by the same committee of sleep-deprived UX interns. Everything is safe. Everything is beige. Everything is optimised into oblivion.

Isn’t it about time we forgot the paste bit altogether — and instead cut, rip, tear, and shred the internet into something raw again? Something that bleeds. Something that snarls. Something that doesn’t apologise for existing.

We’ve traded personality for templates. Chaos for compliance. Experimentation for “best practice.” The web used to feel like a place where anything could happen — now it feels like a place where everything has already been decided.

It’s time for Anarchy

Not anarchy as a gimmick, but as a creative stance. As a refusal to accept that design must always be frictionless, predictable, and polite. As a reminder that the most memorable digital experiences were never born from conformity — they were born from people who broke things on purpose.

My clients aren’t asking me for another “clean, modern layout.” They’re asking me to create something different. Something that doesn’t look like it came from the same drag-and-drop factory as everyone else’s brand. They want adrenaline. They want disruption. They want the digital equivalent of a gig in a basement with sweat dripping from the ceiling.

And maybe that’s the point: web design needs to stop behaving like a corporate brochure and start behaving like a live performance again.

The next era of the internet won’t be built by people who follow the rules — it’ll be built by people who gleefully tear them up.

3mm Philips Eurorack Screws – Modular Synth Fasteners (20 Pack)

2026-09-05T12:27:23.897+01:00

New Old Stock – 3mm Philips-Type Eurorack Screws (20 Pack)

If you work with Eurorack modular synthesizers, you already know how much the small details matter. These New Old Stock 3mm Philips-type screws are the quiet, reliable hardware that keep your system solid, aligned, and ready for patching.

Buy Here

This product is a 20 pack of Eurorack screws for modular synthesizers. The brand is unknown, but these screws follow the familiar format used throughout the Eurorack world and are a common component in building and customising systems.

The screws serve as fasteners to secure modules and components within the synthesizer rack, helping you maintain a secure and stable setup for creating music and sound experiments. Whether you are assembling a new case, refreshing an older setup, or keeping spares on hand, this pack offers a simple, effective solution.

Ideal for DIY enthusiasts and professionals in the music production industry, these 3mm Philips-type screws are easy to work with and fit the standard Eurorack approach to mounting modules and faceplates.

Please note: each pack contains 20 screws only.

Pentax P30

2026-09-04T09:34:06.503+01:00

Pentax P30 – A Simple, Reliable 35mm Workhorse

The Pentax P30, released in the mid-1980s, remains one of those quietly dependable 35mm SLRs that never tried to be flashy but always delivered. It sits in that sweet spot between fully manual vintage cameras and the later wave of automated film bodies, making it ideal for photographers who want a straightforward shooting experience without unnecessary complexity.

Design and Handling

The P30 is compact, lightweight, and immediately familiar to anyone who has used a manual-focus SLR. Its controls are intuitive: shutter speed dial on top, aperture on the lens, and a bright viewfinder that makes focusing easy even in low light. The plastic body keeps the weight down, but it still feels solid enough for everyday use.

Features

Manual and Program Modes: The camera offers a simple Program mode for quick shooting, but it really shines in manual mode, where the photographer has full control.
K-Mount Compatibility: Pentax’s K-mount means access to decades of lenses, from classic primes to more modern glass.
Clear Viewfinder Display: The LED indicators inside the viewfinder provide shutter speed information without clutter.

The P30 doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a practical tool. No gimmicks, no distractions — just a clean photographic workflow.

It Still Appeals Today

Film photographers often rediscover the P30 because it’s inexpensive, reliable, and easy to maintain. It’s a great entry point for anyone wanting to explore 35mm photography without investing heavily. The camera’s simplicity encourages a slower, more thoughtful approach to image-making, something many digital shooters find refreshing.

A Camera That Keeps Going

Decades on, the Pentax P30 continues to be used by students, hobbyists, and collectors. Its durability and straightforward design have helped it age gracefully. It’s not a cult classic, but it’s a camera that quietly earns respect through consistent performance.

Below is an extract from a previous blog post:

Pentax P30 has shutter speeds from 1/1000 of a second to 1 second. The automatic mode on this film camera chooses the best shutter speed and aperture setting for the natural light available.

The photograph above was taken with a Pentax P30 35mm camera (no 3702885) using an out of date roll of Kodak Gold film (Kodak GT 800-4).

In 1952 Asahi Optical introduced its first camera, the Asahiflex (the first Japanese SLR using 35mm film). The name "Pentax" was originally a registered trademark of the East German VEB Zeiss Ikon (from "Pentaprism" and "Contax") but, as all Germans patents were annulled with the country's defeat, the name "Pentax" was taken by Asahi Optical in 1957. Since then the company has been primarily known for its photographic products, distributed under the name "Asahi Pentax" (equipment was imported to the United States from the 1950s until the mid-1970s by Honeywell Corporation and branded "Honeywell Pentax"). The company was renamed Pentax Corporation in 2002. It was one of the world's largest optical companies, producing still cameras, binoculars, spectacle lenses, and a variety of other optical instruments. In 2004 Pentax had about 6000 employees.

Indiscriminate direct business mail

2026-09-02T10:10:51.611+01:00

Why Mass Marketing Still Misses the Mark

For decades, indiscriminate direct business mail was treated as a numbers game. The logic was simple: send enough letters, flyers, or emails and eventually someone will respond. That mindset shaped entire industries — from bulk postal marketing to the early era of digital outreach — but the world has changed. Audiences have become more selective, privacy expectations have tightened, and businesses are discovering that volume alone no longer delivers meaningful results.

The companies still relying on blanket mailouts, cold-call lists, or mass email blasts are confronting a hard truth. Indiscriminate communication doesn’t just underperform; it actively erodes trust.

The decline of scatter-gun marketing

The shift away from traditional direct mail began when digital marketing promised cheaper, faster, and more measurable outreach. Email campaigns replaced envelopes, and purchased mailing lists replaced carefully cultivated customer relationships. But the promise of digital scale came with a cost: inbox fatigue, spam filters, and a growing intolerance for unsolicited contact.

Sending 10,000 emails today might generate a handful of replies — often less than 1%. In many small business campaigns, open rates on cold lists sit between 5% and 10%, with click-through rates below 1%. Complaint rates and unsubscribes can easily outnumber genuine leads.

The same applies to physical mail. A generic flyer dropped through every letterbox in a postcode is no longer seen as clever coverage; it’s seen as noise. Response rates for untargeted postal campaigns often hover around 0.5% to 1%, and most of those responses are low-value enquiries rather than committed customers.

Case study 1: The cold email list that damaged a brand

A regional B2B services company purchased a list of 50,000 email addresses from a data broker, hoping to quickly expand its client base. The campaign was simple: one generic email, sent to everyone on the list over a two-week period.

The results looked impressive at first glance: around 4,000 opens (8%) and 250 clicks (0.5%). But when the team looked closer, the picture changed. Only 12 of those clicks turned into meaningful conversations, and just 3 became paying clients.

Meanwhile, the campaign generated over 600 spam complaints and a noticeable drop in newsletter engagement from existing subscribers. The company’s domain reputation suffered, future emails landed in junk folders more often, and the brand was quietly labelled as “spammy” by many of the very businesses it wanted to impress.

The lesson was clear: the short-term reach of indiscriminate email came at the long-term cost of trust.

Targeted communication is now the only sensible strategy

Modern marketing succeeds when it respects attention. Businesses that invest in understanding their audience — who they are, what they need, and when they need it — consistently outperform those relying on indiscriminate outreach.

A single well-researched lead is more valuable than a thousand names scraped from a database. When someone actively expresses interest, the conversation begins on solid ground. They’re receptive, informed, and far more likely to convert.

This is why personalised communication, permission-based marketing, and data-driven segmentation have become essential. They replace guesswork with relevance.

Case study 2: Fewer contacts, higher conversions

A small software company decided to abandon purchased lists and focus on permission-based marketing. Instead of sending 20,000 cold emails, they built a list of 1,200 contacts gathered through webinars, sign-up forms, and referrals.

The numbers were modest but powerful: open rates regularly exceeded 45%, click-through rates sat around 12%, and conversion rates from email to paying customer reached 6%. In one quarter, the company generated more revenue from those 1,200 contacts than from the previous year of cold outreach combined.

Crucially, complaint rates were almost zero. Recipients recognised the brand, remembered opting in, and treated the emails as useful communication rather than intrusion.

Here, precision beat volume. The company spoke to fewer people, but the right people.

The quiet return of creative direct mail

Interestingly, direct mail hasn’t disappeared. It has evolved.

Businesses are rediscovering the impact of physical communication — but not the old, generic kind. Modern direct mail succeeds when it is distinctive: shaped flyers, tactile materials, unusual formats, or personalised print pieces that stand out in a world dominated by screens.

In one campaign, a design agency sent 500 highly personalised, folded card mailers to carefully selected prospects instead of 10,000 generic leaflets. Each card referenced the recipient’s brand and included a short, handwritten note.

The response rate was over 18%. Around 90 prospects booked calls, 25 became clients, and the campaign paid for itself many times over. Compared to the agency’s previous mass leaflet drop — which produced a response rate of under 1% and no long-term clients — the difference was stark.

The medium wasn’t the problem. The strategy was.

Reputation matters more than reach

Every unsolicited message carries a risk. It can make a company appear desperate, disconnected, or careless with data. In an era where trust is currency, businesses cannot afford to be seen as intrusive.

Thoughtful targeting, respectful communication, and genuine relevance are no longer optional. They are the baseline expectations of modern customers.

Indiscriminate direct business mail belongs to another era. Today, precision wins.

25 in UK Charts

2026-08-30T05:48:05.151+01:00

This Window rises to No. 25 in the UK alternative chart

Today marks another quiet but powerful milestone for This Window, the long‑running experimental project that continues to defy categorisation and expectation. As of this morning, the project has climbed to No. 25 in a UK alternative chart, driven entirely by listener plays, page visits, and genuine engagement rather than marketing machinery or playlist manipulation.

A project built on persistence and reinvention

This Window began life in the 1980s UK cassette underground, operating from bedrooms, kitchens, and makeshift home studios rather than glossy commercial spaces. Over the years, the project has moved through post‑punk minimalism, lo‑fi tape collage, experimental electronics and stark, voice‑driven pieces that sit somewhere between song, spoken word and sound art.

What makes today’s chart position so striking is how it reflects that long arc: a body of work shaped by DIY ethics, analogue experimentation and a refusal to chase trends. Releases have appeared on small labels, through mail‑order, on Bandcamp and via the project’s own site — always quietly, always with a focus on the work rather than the hype.

Listeners discovering This Window in 2026 often describe the same experience: stumbling across a track that feels strangely intimate, slightly unsettling, and completely unlike anything else in the charts. That uniqueness is exactly what has carried the project from cult obscurity into a new wave of recognition.

The track behind the surge: “This Is Not the Way It Should Be”

This Is War by This Window

Why this moment matters

This Window’s climb to No. 25 isn’t just a number. It signals a shift in how alternative audiences are listening in 2026:

Authenticity is resonating again. The project’s raw, analogue‑leaning sound stands out in a landscape dominated by digital gloss.
Long‑form creativity is being rediscovered. Many listeners are exploring the back catalogue, uncovering decades of work that feel newly relevant.
Independent artists are finding space. Chart movement driven by genuine engagement — not algorithms — is becoming increasingly rare.

For a project that has always existed outside the mainstream, today’s placement feels like a quiet victory. It suggests that there is still room in the charts for work that is awkward, emotional and stubbornly individual.

Their Gods

Forthcoming Album: Introducing This Window

The response is both refusal and resolve: let them measure what they want; we won’t turn away from the light.

Download this track, a shortened mix made exclusively for Reverbnation.

A growing audience, a growing legacy

This Window’s recent momentum follows a string of renewed interest across Bandcamp, independent radio and niche music blogs. The project’s catalogue — from early cassette‑era experiments to recent digital releases — is being revisited by new listeners who are drawn to its emotional depth and outsider perspective.

Over time, This Window has become less a “band” and more an ongoing archive of one person’s response to the world: politics, grief, boredom, anger, humour and the small, private moments that rarely make it into pop songs. The recordings carry the sound of rooms, traffic, tape hiss and the accidental noises that most producers try to erase.

The rise to No. 25 suggests something larger: This Window is no longer just a cult project. It is becoming a recognised voice in the UK alternative scene, one that continues to evolve while staying true to its roots. For listeners who have followed the project for years, today’s chart position feels like a shared milestone.

Looking ahead

Whether the chart position climbs further or quietly slips away, the work continues. New material is already in progress, alongside reissues and archival pieces that trace the project’s journey from cassette culture to the present day.

For now, though, No. 25 is enough — a small number that carries a lot of history. If you’ve just discovered This Window through the chart, there is an entire world of recordings waiting behind that single track. Start with “This Is Not the Way It Should Be”, then wander. The project has always rewarded curiosity.

Sitemaps = Art

2026-08-28T16:27:25.116+01:00

What a Sitemap Really Is — And Why Appearance Isn’t Enough

It is worth taking a moment to consider what a sitemap actually is — and to recognise that even if a sitemap is written in the correct format and appears technically sound, it may not function effectively as a sitemap at all. A sitemap is only as useful as the information it contains and the order in which that information is prioritised. If the internal structure is confused, incomplete, or illogical, then the sitemap becomes little more than a decorative file.

Just because something looks like a sitemap does not mean it behaves like one. We often rely on visual cues to define things: if we see something covered in feathers, we instinctively call it a bird. But what if the feathered creature has no beak, no wings, and cannot fly — do we still insist it is a bird simply because it resembles one? A sitemap works in much the same way. Appearance alone is not enough; function is everything.

After Creating Your XML Sitemap: What Happens Next?

Once you have created an XML sitemap and uploaded it to your website, the next step is to ensure that search engines can actually find it, read it, and trust it. Google continues to recommend submitting your sitemap through Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools). Doing so allows you to:

Validate your site and confirm ownership
Demonstrate responsibility for managing and updating content
Monitor how Google crawls and indexes your pages
Receive alerts about errors, broken links, or indexing issues

Submitting your sitemap is not simply a formality; it is a declaration that you are maintaining the site and that the structure you have provided is intentional.

Additional Ways to Submit Your Sitemap

Beyond Google Search Console, you can also submit — and resubmit — your sitemap using the following methods:

Sending an HTTP request directly to Google
This “ping” notifies Google of the sitemap’s location and prompts a fresh crawl.
Including the sitemap location in your robots.txt file
This ensures that any search engine visiting your site is immediately informed of where the sitemap lives.

A Sitemap Is a Map of Intent

A well‑constructed sitemap reflects the logic of your site. It shows which pages matter most, how they relate to one another, and how you expect visitors — and search engines — to move through your content. If the hierarchy is muddled, the signal becomes weak. If the structure is clear, the site becomes easier to crawl, easier to understand, and far more likely to be indexed accurately.

In other words: a sitemap is not just a technical requirement. It is the architectural sketch of your digital space. When it is designed with care, everything else — content, navigation, search visibility — becomes stronger.

Sheep Skull - Extraction 1989

2026-08-24T11:24:43.443+01:00

Extraction 1989 – This Window A review:

"Extraction 1989 is one of those releases that reminds you exactly why the UK’s cassette‑culture underground mattered. It’s not nostalgia; it’s the shock of hearing a project at the moment its language crystallises. This Window’s 1989 tape—now reissued from the original master—captures a shift from raw DIY abrasion toward something more atmospheric, more deliberate, and more quietly unsettling."

Extraction — originally released by EE Tapes (ET06) in 1989 — returns here as a digital transfer from the original master tape. The material itself has a strangely archaeological quality: fragments literally gathered from the studio floor, lengths of ¼” tape spliced together, threaded through whatever machines were at hand, and mixed in a semi‑random, instinctive manner. Some of these sounds reach even further back, with source elements dating to 1978.

This download is sourced from the original master.

Extraction pt.1 has been edited for language compliance, making this version suitable for all ages.

Review of original cassette release:

★ THIS WINDOW – “EXTRACTION” (EE Tapes, Belgium, 1989)

C60 / experimental electronics, tape‑manipulation, post‑industrial ambience

There’s a peculiar tension running through Extraction, the sort of uneasy stillness you only get when someone has spent far too long alone with a reel‑to‑reel machine. This Window (UK) works in that grey zone between sound‑art and song‑form, but never commits fully to either. Instead, the tape becomes the instrument: loops grind against each other, fragments of voice drift in like intercepted transmissions, and the whole thing feels as if it’s been assembled in a room where the lights keep flickering.

The production is raw in the best possible way—close‑mic’d hiss, mechanical hum, and the sense of physical tape being pushed to its limits. EE Tapes have been curating some of the more interesting European underground electronics lately, and this fits their aesthetic perfectly: minimal, slightly claustrophobic, and quietly obsessive.

Extraction 1989 by This Window

🜁 The sound world (original cassette release)

Across its four long-form pieces, Extraction 1989 builds its vocabulary from tape loops, treated guitar, low‑fidelity electronics and environmental recordings. Nothing here is busy. Instead, the music breathes in slow pulses, tonal smears, and repeating fragments that feel like they’re decaying as you listen.

Side A (pt.1 & pt.2) leans into rhythmic residue—loops that churn, patterns that erode, textures that feel half‑mechanical and half‑handmade. There’s a sense of motion, but it’s the motion of machinery left running in an empty room.
Side B (pt.3 & pt.4) opens into wider, more ambient territory: drones, distant voices, spatial hums, and the kind of atmospheric drift that defined the more introspective end of post‑industrial minimalism.

The tape hiss isn’t a flaw; it’s part of the composition. The physicality of the medium becomes another instrument, adding grit, warmth, and a sense of presence that digital clarity can’t replicate.

What makes Extraction stand out is its restraint. Where many home‑tapers throw everything into the mix, This Window pares things back to the essentials: tone, texture, repetition, and the slow erosion of sound. It’s music that doesn’t try to impress you; it just sits in the room and alters the temperature.

A strange, absorbing little document from someone clearly committed to the craft of tape.

Lay Back - Beautiful Losers

2026-08-24T11:19:56.206+01:00

A voice speaking from the edge of a bed at 3 a.m.

“Lay Back” has always been one of those tracks that doesn’t simply play in the background — it occupies space. It unfolds like a half‑lit confession, its pulse slow and deliberate, each beat a breath taken between memories. The track first appeared on the 2025 album This Is War, a release that pushed This Window further into the territory of intimate minimalism and emotional stillness.

The track doesn’t just reference Leonard Cohen’s Favourite Games and Beautiful Losers; it seems to inhabit their rooms, borrowing the scent of their cigarette smoke and the weight of their silences. The vocal delivery is intimate yet detached — a voice speaking from the edge of a bed at 3 a.m., where desire and disillusionment lie tangled in the same sheets.

Sparse synth tones and low, percussive murmurs form the backbone of the piece, like the hum of a radiator in winter or the faint static of a radio tuned just off‑station. It resists the modern urge to fill every space, letting the listener linger in the gaps where the real intimacy happens.

Download the Track

You can download or stream “Lay Back” directly on Bandcamp: Download “Lay Back” on Bandcamp

From Album to Atmosphere

On This Is War, “Lay Back” sits as one of the album’s most reflective moments — a slow‑burning fragment of emotional archaeology. The album blends themes of conflict, memory, and quiet resilience, and “Lay Back” acts as a counterweight: a room of stillness inside a world of noise.

This Is War by This Window

“Lay Back” isn’t just a song — it’s a room you step into, dimly lit, where the air is thick with the ghosts of lovers and the quiet ache of things left unsaid. A moment of stillness inside a restless world.

Review: “Lay Back” unfolds like a half-lit confession, its pulse slow and deliberate, as though each beat is a breath taken between memories. The track doesn’t just reference Leonard Cohen’s Favourite Games and Beautiful Losers — it seems to inhabit their rooms, borrowing the scent of their cigarette smoke and the weight of their silences.

The vocal delivery is intimate yet detached, a voice speaking from the edge of a bed at 3 a.m., where desire and disillusionment lie tangled in the same sheets. The instrumentation is sparse but deliberate — synth tones and low, percussive murmurs that feel like the hum of a radiator in winter, or the faint static of a radio tuned just off-station.

„Lay Back“ war schon immer einer dieser Tracks, die nicht einfach im Hintergrund laufen — sie nehmen Raum ein. Er entfaltet sich wie ein halb beleuchtetes Geständnis, sein Puls langsam und bedacht, jeder Schlag ein Atemzug zwischen Erinnerungen. Der Track erschien erstmals auf dem Album This Is War aus dem Jahr 2025, einer Veröffentlichung, die This Window weiter in das Terrain intimer Minimalistik und emotionaler Stille führte.

Montana SG Vintage Guitar 1970s Style

2026-08-08T13:08:00.520+01:00

Montana SG-Style Vintage Electric Guitar – 1970s Burgundy Body

This 1970s Montana SG‑style electric guitar captures the unmistakable look and feel of the 1960s/70s Japanese‑influenced SG models, the same era when Korean and Japanese factories were producing some of the most characterful and collectible instruments outside the USA. The deep burgundy finish is the colour everyone wants from this period — rich, warm, and instantly recognisable — and it gives the guitar a classic vintage presence that stands out beautifully.

Built with a solid mahogany body, this instrument retains all its original vintage hardware, preserving the authentic feel of the era. It has been sympathetically restored, including a replacement brass nut for improved durability and tone, plus new machine heads for smoother, more reliable tuning.

Total height: 37.75"
Neck scale length: 24.75"

The guitar keeps its original scratchplate, pickups, tremolo unit (with a replacement arm), switches and knobs, all functioning as they should. With 21 frets, a 6‑string configuration, and the familiar right‑handed SG‑inspired silhouette, it delivers that unmistakable vintage playability and style.

This is an ideal instrument for players or collectors seeking a true 1970s SG‑style guitar with real history, honest wear, and the unmistakable character of early Korean/Japanese production. It’s approaching 50 years old, so it carries the natural marks and patina of a well‑played vintage instrument — not perfect, but absolutely authentic, and still full of life.

A solid, charismatic example of a burgundy SG‑style guitar from a highly collectible era, ready for many more years of music. See images for more detail.

'50 Best Blogs = Printmaking' - WordPress

2026-08-07T17:00:53.148+01:00

Reflections on Early Blogging Culture

In 2011, PeterBright.info appeared in a list celebrating the “50 Best Blogs by Printmakers.” It was a small moment, but one that captured the spirit of an era when blogging was still raw, experimental, and wonderfully unpolished. Artists were discovering that the web could be part of their creative practice rather than just a place to display finished work.

Early Blogging: A Different Kind of Studio

Blogging in the late 2000s and early 2010s had a particular texture. Posts were often written quickly, sometimes daily, sometimes in bursts of inspiration. The idea of a “content strategy” barely existed. You wrote because you had something to say, or because you were exploring an idea, or simply because you wanted to document a process.

A blog felt more like a sketchbook than a publication. It was a living timeline where ideas accumulated, contradicted themselves, looped back, and evolved. Readers didn’t expect polish; they expected honesty, curiosity, and a sense of ongoing discovery.

Why Printmakers Thrived Online

Printmaking is inherently iterative: layers, proofs, mistakes, revisions. Blogging mirrored that process. Many artists used their blogs as informal studios, sharing works-in-progress, experiments, failures, and small triumphs. Imperfection wasn’t a flaw — it was part of the charm.

In 2011, a blog wasn’t a portfolio. It was a conversation.

From 2011 to 2026: What Has Changed?

Today, long-form writing competes with the speed of video and the churn of AI-generated content. Social platforms dominate attention, and timelines move faster than thought. Yet blogs remain important — not because they are fashionable, but because they offer something the fast-moving platforms cannot: depth, continuity, and a sense of place.

A blog is still one of the few digital formats where ideas can unfold slowly, where archives matter, and where a voice can develop over years rather than seconds.

The Legacy of Early Blogging

The 2011 list of “50 Best Blogs by Printmakers” is a relic of an earlier era, but it also marks a turning point. It captures the moment when artists realised that the web could be part of their practice — a space for experimentation, imperfection, and community.

Early blogging wasn’t just about publishing. It was about participating. It was about showing your working. It was about building a small, self-made world and inviting others into it.

That spirit still survives — especially in the corners of the internet where artists continue to write, document, and explore without worrying too much about algorithms or trends.

A Continuing Timeline

The early blog was a sketchbook, a diary, a studio, a gallery, a conversation. It was all of these at once. Its legacy continues in every artist who still chooses to write, to share, to reflect, and to build their own timeline of ideas — one post at a time.

Write a Blog

2026-08-07T01:30:00.000+01:00

Popular blogs, income, and modern search reality

Popular blogs don’t automatically generate income, and high traffic alone is no longer enough to build a sustainable revenue stream. In modern search, authority, relevance, and user trust matter far more than raw visitor numbers. The most effective way to market your business through blogging is to publish content that other websites want to link to, quote, and reference. Backlinks remain one of the strongest signals of credibility and search engine ranking power.

But no amount of blog popularity can compensate for a poor product or service. If what you’re offering is weak, inconsistent, or low‑quality, increased visibility simply exposes the problem faster. Search engines reward quality, and audiences do too.

Blog charts, rankings, and domain authority

Blog charts, ranking systems, and performance metrics still act as useful indicators of how well your site is performing. They influence search engine placement, strengthen your domain authority, and help build long‑term visibility. A popular blog is often a successful blog — and potentially a strong earner — but only when the content is genuinely valuable and aligned with what users are searching for.

Publishing low‑effort or “filler” content sends a clear message: you believe your visitors deserve low‑effort content. Modern users recognise thin, repetitive, or keyword‑stuffed writing instantly, and search engines penalise it. High‑quality, intent‑driven content is now essential for ranking, engagement, and conversion.

What makes a successful blog in 2026?

Writing a successful blog requires the ability to refine ideas, remove unnecessary noise, and create content that flows naturally. When writing feels effortless, it mirrors the confidence of a painter who understands their medium — precise, intuitive, and deceptively simple. That’s the foundation of effective blogging: clear structure, strong topical relevance, and content that demonstrates expertise without forcing it.

Propaganda – only the winner is right in marketing

2026-08-05T21:29:40.587+01:00

Propaganda: Only the Winner Is “Right”

Propaganda has always been a tool of power. It shapes narratives, rewrites events, and decides who gets to be remembered as “right.” History shows that the side with the loudest voice—or the biggest platform—often becomes the side whose version of events is accepted.

Governments, corporations, media organisations, and even small groups use propaganda to steer opinion. Sometimes it’s subtle: a repeated phrase, a selective statistic, a carefully framed image. Sometimes it’s blunt: fear, division, or the promise of safety if you simply agree.

The troubling part is how easily propaganda becomes normal. When repeated enough, it stops feeling like persuasion and starts feeling like truth. People begin to defend it, share it, and build their identity around it. Once that happens, challenging the narrative becomes almost impossible.

In the end, propaganda rewards the victor. The winning side writes the story, defines the heroes, and buries the contradictions. The loser becomes a footnote, or worse—a villain. The truth sits somewhere in the middle, but it rarely gets the spotlight.

Understanding this doesn’t make us immune, but it does make us aware. And awareness is the first step in resisting the idea that only the winner is ever “right.”

After Stalingrad...

The powerful contemporary images in newspapers, magazines, the cinema and on the radio were bound to filter into a creative mind. The apocalyptic nature of war would seep into your pores – you wouldn’t be an artist if these catastrophic events didn’t influence your creativity.

Are you a business leader or is it time to get out?

2026-08-05T21:19:45.463+01:00

Are You a Business Leader — Or Is It Time to Get Out?

Every creative partnership eventually hits a moment of reckoning. Two creative minds rarely stay in perfect balance forever. One begins to pull ahead in visibility, momentum, and public recognition. The other becomes the stabiliser, the enabler, the quiet force that keeps the machinery running. Both roles matter — but they are not equal in how the world perceives them.

The question is brutal but necessary: Which one are you?

Leader or Enabler — And Why It Matters

In any partnership, especially a creative one, hierarchy isn’t declared; it emerges. It forms through behaviour, output, confidence, and public reception. The person who generates the most noise, attention, or perceived value becomes the de facto leader. Not because they are better, but because the world rewards visibility over substance.

The other partner — the enabler — often carries the weight no one sees:

Stability: They maintain the day-to-day structure that keeps everything moving.
Problem-solving: They quietly fix issues before they become public crises.
Continuity: They keep the project alive when the “leader” is busy being visible.
Sacrifice: They trade their own creative momentum to support the shared identity.

History rarely remembers this person. They become the ghost behind the curtain, the glue that held everything together while someone else took the spotlight. The perception of achievement and value automatically encircles the “socially successful” individual, while the minor player’s importance is quietly erased.

The Hierarchical Tipping Point

Within a creative partnership containing two creative souls, there is always a hierarchical tipping point. The individual who creates the most waves within the public domain automatically becomes the dominant figure. Over time, this dominance hardens into identity: one is “the name,” the other is “the support.”

At that tipping point, the enabler begins to feel the cost of their role. Exhaustion, frustration, and quiet resentment creep in. The partnership becomes a loop of unspoken expectations and unacknowledged contributions. The imbalance is no longer subtle — it is structural.

At that moment, the enabler faces a hard truth:

Do you step up and claim leadership?
Do you redefine your role and demand recognition?
Do you walk away before the imbalance crushes you?
Or do you need help — structural, emotional, professional — to break the pattern?

The Real Question

It isn’t simply: Are you the leader or the enabler?

The deeper question is:

Are you playing the role you want — or the role you’ve fallen into?
Is this partnership still serving you — or draining you?
Are you staying out of loyalty, fear, habit, or hope?
Is it time to lead, time to leave, or time to get support before the partnership collapses?

Creative partnerships don’t fail because of lack of talent. They fail because one person grows while the other shrinks — and nobody says it out loud.

You’re saying it now.

Are You the Leader — Or Is It Time to Get Out?

So ask yourself, honestly:

Are you the leader? Then own it, but recognise the enabler’s value and stop erasing their contribution.
Are you the enabler? Then decide whether you want to stay in that role, transform it, or walk away.
Do you need help? Then seek it — from mentors, peers, or professionals who can help you renegotiate the partnership or exit it with clarity.

The partnership you are in today will shape the work you create tomorrow. If the hierarchy is crushing you, it may be time to stop asking for balance and start demanding change — or start planning your exit.

Are you the leader, the enabler, or the one who finally chooses to step out and reclaim your own creative life?

Marketing - Visibility and Business Deals

2026-08-02T06:21:16.768+01:00

Having run a business on the outskirts of Birmingham I know the importance of being visible - if you can't be found then deals can't be made. Marketing was the key to success back then but now deals depend on mobile‑first indexing, AI and visibility if you want to expand and market your business.

Is your website still invisible on phones?

Search has changed completely since the early days. Google is no longer the only gatekeeper — Bing, AI‑powered Bing Chat, Microsoft Copilot and other AI search assistants now decide whether your business is visible or invisible on mobile devices.

All major search engines use mobile‑first indexing. Your site is judged primarily on how it performs on a phone, not on a desktop screen. If your website is not mobile‑friendly, you are already losing rankings, traffic and enquiries to competitors.

Responsive web design: the minimum standard

Responsive Web Design is an approach to web design that ensures your site automatically adapts to every screen size — laptops, desktops, tablets and mobile phones. It provides:

Easy reading without zooming or horizontal scrolling
Clean navigation designed for touch, not just a mouse
Fast loading on mobile connections

Google explicitly recommends responsive design as the best way to handle mobile users, and Bing follows the same principles. Sites that fail basic mobile usability tests are pushed down the results in favour of fast, responsive alternatives.

Your clients live on mobile search and AI

Your clients now rely on their phones, tablets and AI‑driven search tools to find services like yours. They expect pages that:

Load in a few seconds on mobile data
Display correctly on any device
Work well when surfaced inside Google, Bing or AI assistants

If your site breaks on a mobile phone, or is hard to read and navigate, those visitors will not struggle — they will simply tap on a competitor instead.

Can you afford to be complacent?

A non‑responsive website is more than an inconvenience — it is a direct threat to your business. Poor mobile performance means:

Lower rankings in Google and Bing
Fewer enquiries from local and mobile searches
More business for your rivals

If your website fails to work properly on a mobile phone or tablet, now is the time to act.

Our responsive web design service

We offer a responsive web design service that is affordable, modern and stylish. It can run alongside your existing site or replace it entirely, giving you:

A mobile‑friendly layout that passes current usability tests
Improved visibility in Google, Bing and AI‑driven search
A better experience for your clients on every device

If your website does not work well on a mobile phone, contact us today. A responsive upgrade is one of the simplest, most cost‑effective ways to protect your business and keep your clients with you — not with your competitors.

A Long Arc of Experiments, Accidents and Persistence

Across the shifting landscape of British experimental music, This Window, originally based on the outskirts of Birmingham, has remained one of the most quietly enduring presences — a project that has never chased scenes, trends or movements, but instead built its own slow, idiosyncratic path. For more than four decades, the work has unfolded through cassette culture, reel-to-reel tape, early digital experiments and contemporary rendering tools, always retaining a sense of rawness and curiosity that defines its identity.

Hopeless 1988 - 2026 by This Window

The release, Hopeless 1988–2026, gathers five pieces from across that long timeline. It is presented as a free digital download, but its value lies far beyond its price. This is not a retrospective in the conventional sense. It is a cross-section — a set of fragments and finished works that reveal how the project has evolved, adapted and persisted through changing technologies and changing personal circumstances.

Art music

2026-07-31T06:39:59.825+01:00

Here is a video featuring a track call ‘Tanks Le Lot’ which appears in the ‘Extraction’ remix on the album ‘Cassette Culture'. The images are of the exhibition of Peter Bright’s work in the 150 building at West Buckland School during June 2011.

This Window

This download is sourced from the original master. Extraction pt.1 has been edited for language compliance, making this version suitable for all ages.

Extraction 1989 by This Window

Review of original cassette release:

★ THIS WINDOW – “EXTRACTION” (EE Tapes, Belgium, 1989)

C60 / experimental electronics, tape‑manipulation, post‑industrial ambience

Side A leans toward rhythmic decay—patterns that almost become beats before collapsing back into texture. Side B is more atmospheric, with long stretches of treated guitar and environmental noise that suggest abandoned industrial spaces or late‑night shortwave drift. Nothing here is flashy; everything is deliberate.

A strange, absorbing little document from someone clearly committed to the craft of audio tape.

Tape Loops, Video and Responsive Web Design

2026-07-30T08:02:00.826+01:00

www.thiswindow.co.uk is built as a fully Responsive Web Design, adapting seamlessly to phones, tablets, laptops and large‑screen displays — every article, image and embedded player scales cleanly across formats.

The Ashtray: Tape Loops as Cinema Fragments

“The Ashtray” remains one of the clearest expressions of This Window’s long fascination with analogue breakdown, mechanical repetition and the strange emotional charge of malfunction. Built from a ¼‑inch tape loop, the piece sits firmly within the project’s cassette‑culture roots — handmade, minimal, and shaped by the physical realities of tape moving through a machine.

It feels like a fragment of a lost soundtrack: something you might discover on a degraded VHS of an experimental film, its edges softened by time. The loop’s steady churn becomes a kind of indifferent heartbeat, while the added layers smear into a synthetic fog that feels both intimate and alien. There’s tension in its restraint, a quiet pressure in the repetition, and a stillness that hints the machinery itself might be breathing.

Within the wider context of Extractivism — an album built from rediscovered fragments, recovered moments and reworked material — “The Ashtray” acts as a reminder of the project’s core: shadows, static, memory, and the fragile beauty of sound captured in the moment.

Extractivism by This Window

A Scruffier Kind of Synthwave

Stylistically, “The Ashtray” sits somewhere inside the Synthwave family, but not the polished neon‑slick version. This is the scruffier cousin: the one who turns up with a pocket full of tape loops, a faint smell of vodka and absolutely no intention of behaving like a retro‑futurist anthem. It hums, loops, mutters to itself — and that’s exactly its charm. A loop rescued from 1981, haunted by 2026.

Free Downloads & Video

Tape Loops, Video, and the Responsive World of This Window

You can explore more of This Window’s long, strange arc through the free five‑track digital compilations on Bandcamp. These collections gather material recorded across several decades — compact cassette, ¼‑inch reel‑to‑reel, early digital experiments and current computer‑based work. Together they form a quiet documentary of changing methods, technologies and aesthetics.

Free downloads and video: https://thiswindow.bandcamp.com/

Built for All Formats

As This Window continues to evolve across audio, video and digital collage, the website evolves too - www.thiswindow.co.uk is fully responsive, designed to work cleanly across all devices and screen sizes. Whether you’re reading on a phone, browsing on a tablet, or exploring the archive on a large monitor, the site adapts automatically — images scale, text reflows, and embedded players remain accessible.

A flexible project built on fragments, formats and decades of shifting technology.

When porn becomes the business strategy

2026-07-30T01:40:00.000+01:00

SEO Pornography and the Modern Business Machine

Business used to be simple: build something, tell people about it, hope they buy it. Today, visibility is the real product. Companies perform for search engines with the same intensity they once reserved for customers. SEO has become a kind of digital exhibitionism — a deliberate, exaggerated display designed to attract algorithmic attention. That’s where the idea of SEO pornography comes in.

Not pornography in the sexual sense, but in the sense of performing for a system, exposing content in calculated ways purely to gain ranking, traffic, and market share.

The business vs. the algorithm

Modern business doesn’t compete only with rivals; it competes with the algorithm itself. Search engines reward predictable patterns, structured content, and behavioural signals. Companies respond by shaping their output to satisfy those rules.

This creates a distortion.
Businesses stop communicating naturally and start optimising theatrically.
They produce content not because it’s valuable, but because it’s visible.

Performative optimisation - don't turn around

In 2026, SEO is no longer a support function — it’s a performance layer. Companies exaggerate relevance, inflate clarity, and repeat keywords with mechanical precision. The goal isn’t insight; it’s exposure. Using SEO tactics from a decade ago is like appearing in your own horror movie - don't look backwards.

This is the “pornography” of SEO:

Over-engineered keywords
Artificially structured content
Forced authority signals
Pages designed to arouse algorithmic interest rather than inform customers

It’s a staged act for a machine.

When SEO becomes the business strategy

Some companies embrace this fully. They treat SEO as the core of their business model. Ranking becomes the product. Traffic becomes the currency. The optimisation process becomes the strategy.

This isn’t creativity — it’s survival.
If you don’t perform, you disappear.

The cost of over-optimisation

But there’s a downside. When businesses shape everything around search engines, authenticity collapses. Messaging becomes generic. Websites become indistinguishable. Everyone sounds the same because everyone is chasing the same signals.

The question shifts from “What does our customer need?” to “What will the algorithm reward?” That’s when SEO stops being a tool and becomes a trap.

Reclaiming business clarity

The solution isn’t to abandon SEO — it’s to stop performing for it. Businesses need to produce content that serves customers first and algorithms second. Search engines change constantly; customer needs don’t.

Visibility matters, but not at the expense of identity.

Final thought

SEO pornography is the inevitable result of a digital economy obsessed with exposure. But businesses don’t need to strip themselves down to algorithm-friendly clichés to succeed. They need clarity, relevance, and a message that stands on its own.

Alternative view

For some women, sexuality is their most powerful tool. It can be used to get ahead in life — a bargaining tool to make more money, or to get what they want.

The internet is a tool that connects you with businesses and people. Smart businesses communicate with clients directly, pulling in the voyeurs and boosting their sales so they stay in front of the curve and ahead of rivals. All of this is achievable by using the internet to its full marketing and interaction potential. Try your hand at real search engine optimisation: look at your site, fix broken links, update content, and refine your keywords and phrases avoiding 'SEO Pornography' - you'll get caught out if you do. Harnessing the power of the internet to improve your website’s rank in search engine results pages is a way to achieve your dreams. Don’t be content with just having “lookers” or “peepers” — be more positive and proactive with your time. Improve and inspire, corral your visitors, and steer them towards your products. Create a cage that keeps them locked into your site; tame them so they don’t want to leave. Set your traps carefully and take money from your visitors.

Art history lists dozens of examples of “fine art” that crosses the dubious line between art and pornography. Some of the most famous paintings in the world were originally little more than naughty pictures for very rich men. The act of looking — or “peeping” — was undertaken for the purpose of achieving some sort of sexual excitement. The observer generally did not seek to have sexual contact with the real person being observed. Artists purposely cross the line but intellectualise it away. Pseudo-artistic photography magazines produce porn and use the art tag as a disguise. Nothing changes.

Blog Management

2026-07-29T01:30:00.000+01:00

Strengthening Your Web Presence in 2026

Small businesses still need to increase their web presence effectively and cheaply, and the good news is that in 2026 there are plenty of free, highly efficient tools that deliver real results. Many of these tools are just as powerful for search-engine visibility as the expensive branded “marketing suites” now being pushed at small organisations. Taking a few practical steps today can help you stay competitive, stay discoverable, and keep customers finding you online.

WordPress: Still a Heavyweight

One of our long-standing favourites is WordPress, which continues to offer exceptional value when it comes to website optimisation. Launched in 2003 as a simple way to improve typography and online publishing, WordPress has evolved into one of the most widely used self-hosted publishing platforms in the world. It powers millions of websites and reaches vast audiences every single day.

Although WordPress began life as a blogging tool, by 2026 it has become a fully capable business website engine. With modern themes, performance optimisation, and SEO best practices, WordPress can support dynamic, professional sites that scale with your business. It does require some technical setup — such as configuring storage, hosting, and database access — but that’s exactly the sort of thing we can handle for you.

Database Basics: Why MySQL Matters

Most WordPress installations rely on MySQL, a fast and reliable database used across countless web applications. MySQL stores your site’s content, settings, user accounts, and more. It’s designed to handle large volumes of data and has been trusted by high-traffic platforms for years. When you install WordPress, you’ll typically need a MySQL database (or a compatible alternative, depending on your hosting provider). Once configured correctly, it runs quietly in the background, keeping your site stable and responsive.

Blog Management

If you’d like help with your blog or website “tweaking,” please contact us. We specialise in fixing the things you don’t have time to fix — from layout issues to SEO adjustments, content clean-ups, and general behind-the-scenes improvements that make your site run smoothly.

“Their Gods,” channels that tension between power and faith, wealth and heaven, the need to measure worth without being measured by anything that can be possessed. In the lyrics, authority is claimed and influence is framed as something earned—by resources, by control, by the gods people build when they decide they don’t need anything beyond themselves.

Download this track, a shortened mix made exclusively for Reverbnation.

Ein Track, „Their Gods“, transportiert diese Spannung zwischen Macht und Glauben, Reichtum und Himmel, dem Bedürfnis, Wert zu messen, ohne von irgendetwas gemessen zu werden, das man besitzen kann. In den Texten wird Autorität beansprucht und Einfluss als etwas dargestellt, das man sich verdient – durch Ressourcen, durch Kontrolle, durch die Götter, die Menschen erschaffen, wenn sie entscheiden, dass sie über sich hinaus nichts brauchen.

Die Reaktion ist sowohl Ablehnung als auch Entschlossenheit: Lass sie messen, was sie wollen; wir wenden uns nicht vom Licht ab.

Lade diesen Track herunter, ein verkürzter Mix, der exklusiv für Reverbnation gemacht wurde.

Entrepreneurs in a multi-visual world

2026-07-28T01:30:00.000+01:00

The Entrepreneur of the 21st century doesn’t just need a business plan. They need an instinct for creativity—because the world they’re building in is faster, noisier, and far more visual than it used to be. Attention moves in seconds. Markets shift without warning. And the “obvious” route is usually crowded by the time you’ve noticed it.

In that kind of environment, creativity stops being a luxury and becomes infrastructure: the ability to spot possibilities, test assumptions, and keep adapting when the plan gets overtaken by reality.

Entrepreneurs and artists in a multi-visual world: creativity as a survival skill.

Can entrepreneurs learn from art?

Yes—and not in the vague “be more creative” sense. Entrepreneurs can learn from art because artists practise the very behaviours that innovation requires: experimenting without certainty, working with constraints, and using perception as a tool.

Art also exposes a key truth that many business conversations miss: creativity isn’t only about generating ideas. It’s about shaping meaning—how something is framed, presented, interpreted, and understood. That’s not just relevant to galleries; it’s central to product design, branding, communication, and customer experience.

When you treat creativity as a practical method rather than a personality trait, entrepreneurship becomes less about inspiration and more about capability.

The misconceptions: jargon, myths, and the “outside the box” cliché

There are plenty of myths about creativity, and they’re often reinforced by jargon.

One of the most common is the phrase “thinking outside the box”. It’s meant to sound empowering, but it can accidentally push people into a narrow interpretation: that innovation means escaping the normal sphere of practice—going somewhere unfamiliar and arriving at a solution that couldn’t be reached through ordinary methods.

Sometimes that’s true. Lateral thinking can be powerful, especially when innovation happens through boundary-crossing. New products and new markets often emerge when old boundaries are disturbed—geographical, technological, organisational, or even conceptual. When those borders get exposed, the crossing creates a space where something new can appear.

But there’s another side to creativity that the cliché often hides: you can also be “inside the box” while still thinking creatively. That can sound less glamorous, yet it’s equally inventive. Some of the most effective creativity is methodological—structured exploration, deliberate observation, and reframing familiar material until it behaves differently.

Voyeurism can be a strategy—if you don’t move into the box

Here’s a more useful idea: sometimes innovation comes from staying outside a system long enough to notice what insiders ignore.

In business, “insider thinking” can be valuable—until it becomes inertia. When everyone is fully immersed in the market, they inherit the same blind spots. They assume certain outcomes are inevitable. They treat the existing categories as natural rather than constructed.

Artists frequently practise a form of disciplined distance. They observe. They absorb. They study how things look, feel, fail, and mean. They can position themselves outside a familiar framework without needing to join it.

That same principle can be effective for entrepreneurs—but with an important nuance.

If you treat distance as an opportunity to borrow patterns, then you can create competitor-like products or even clone-style markets. But that isn’t the real point. The trick is to remain voyeuristic—curious, observant, unattached—without climbing fully into the box you’re watching.

When you “enter” the box too quickly, you start sharing its limitations. You begin to think like the existing players, using their assumptions as your definition of reality.

When you remain outside, you stay alert to what’s visible only to those who haven’t fully committed.

So what should entrepreneurs call this approach?

If “artists” feels too broad, and “creatives” feels too fluffy, you could give this mindset a more specific name.

You might call them Creative Scavengers: people who move through the world collecting fragments—styles, signals, tensions, errors, trends, and overlooked behaviours—then reassemble them into something that doesn’t yet exist in the marketplace.

Whatever you call them, the core behaviour is the same:

Observe without rushing to replicate.
Cross boundaries, but don’t lose your outsider perspective.
Use creativity as a method: experiment, iterate, and reframe.
Treat the market as a living collage—something you can understand, rearrange, and reinterpret.

In a multi-visual world, survival belongs to whoever can keep seeing.

Wordpress Plugins For Easy Management

2026-07-27T02:00:00.000+01:00

WordPress Plugins

WordPress has come a long way since it first launched as a simple publishing platform. Today, it’s one of the most flexible and widely used content‑management systems on the web, powering blogs, portfolios, and business websites of every size. Part of what makes WordPress so valuable is its plugin ecosystem—an open library of add‑ons that lets you improve your site’s design, performance, security, and search visibility without needing specialist development skills.

For small businesses and independent creators, this matters even more. You’re often managing your website alongside other responsibilities, whether that means running a shop, serving clients, creating content, or building your brand. Plugins help you achieve professional improvements in less time and usually at a lower cost than bringing in experts for every change.

Why plugins can transform a website

People sometimes assume WordPress plugins are only for advanced users or that they’re mostly for adding flashy features. In reality, the right plugin can solve everyday challenges that many websites face. It can make your site easier to manage, improve how your content is presented to visitors, and help search engines understand what your pages are about. Just as importantly, it can support faster load times and smoother performance, which makes a difference for both user experience and SEO.

A modern website needs more than good design. It should be useful, quick, and discoverable. Plugins help you achieve all of that in a practical way, turning a website from “something that looks nice” into a website that works hard for you.

WordPress’s evolution—and why it still matters

WordPress began in the early 2000s with a focus on blog publishing. Over time, it expanded into a full platform for blogging and building websites. Millions of sites now rely on WordPress because it offers a strong balance between power and usability. Even if you’re not technical, WordPress makes it possible to publish, organize content, and update your site in ways that support long‑term growth.

For creators and smaller organisations, this long‑term flexibility is especially valuable. A website isn’t something you build once and forget. As your services evolve, your audience grows, and your content library expands, your website needs to keep up.

The challenge: keeping your site fresh without making it complicated

Many small organisations hesitate to update or expand their web presence because they worry it will be too expensive or too complicated. They may assume every improvement requires specialist help or that changes could disrupt something already working.

In most cases, those concerns are easier to manage than people think. With the right plugin choices, you can improve your site step by step while keeping things simple. Updates, content enhancements, and SEO improvements can be handled gradually, and a well‑supported plugin makes it far easier to stay consistent over time.

What makes a “favourite” plugin?

A favourite plugin isn’t just one that adds extra features. It’s the one that makes your day‑to‑day website work smoother and your site more effective. The best plugins tend to be easy to install and configure, and they support your goals without constant tweaking. They also tend to be actively maintained, so they remain compatible with WordPress updates and continue to work reliably as your website changes.

When you find a plugin that fits your workflow, it becomes more than a tool. It becomes part of how you improve your online presence in a steady, manageable way.

A simple way to choose the right plugin

If you’re deciding which plugin to use, you don’t need dozens of options. It’s more effective to choose one that genuinely supports your priorities and then use it consistently. The plugin should be reliable and regularly updated, it should be straightforward to set up, and it should match the type of website you’re running. Whether your main goal is SEO, content management, or performance optimisation, the best plugin is the one that helps you make improvements without turning your site into a technical project.

Final thoughts

WordPress continues to be a powerful platform for publishing and building websites, and plugins are what keep it adaptable. With the right plugin—especially one focused on SEO, content management, or performance optimisation—you can keep your site efficient, easy to maintain, and ready for future growth.

If you want to strengthen your online presence, the smartest approach is usually not to overhaul everything at once. Start by choosing a reliable plugin that supports your priorities, then build from there as your content and audience grow.

In Memory Of

2026-07-26T16:33:00.000+01:00

Here is another recycled postcard, originally used in 1999 as a promo for inmemoryof.co.uk.

Sam Bright

Sam Bright was what you would call a real character. He never missed a chance to tell a story or crack a joke. A soldier, a coal miner, a chef at Blackpool Casino, a fish and chip shop owner, a shopkeeper, a pallbearer—these were just a few of his careers.

During the First World War he served as a cook, responsible for the well-being of his comrades. The meagre rations supplied by the army often needed supplementing by scavenging. He went on “raiding parties”, sneaking into French farms and pilfering what he could. Once he found himself in a Frenchman’s dovecote—almost his final mission. The farmer gave chase and levelled a loaded rifle at him. Sam wasn’t proud of his thieving, but as he explained, it was war and his mates were hungry.

One of his most poignant tales was about a march to the front. In a hedgerow Sam spotted a ham bone with a little meat still on it. When they reached the front line, conditions were appalling and rations were low, just as the history books tell us. Sam remembered the ham bone and on the way back from the front he looked for the bone but it had gone - obviously he was beaten to it by another cook from another regiment.

Trench warfare cost him many friends and the sight in one eye. He spotted a German sniper—who unfortunately spotted him a split second before he did. Wounded, he was told by his commanding officer to remain at his post to give his comrades a better chance to fall back, with a promise that his family would receive a medal for his sacrifice. Whatever he replied - I'm sure it wasn't polite because he came home. He was invalided out of service and treated at Guy’s Hospital in London, where they patched him up. Apparently, a damaged nerve in his eye was replaced by one from a rabbit.

Mary Jane Bright

When Mary was in her teens she was apprenticed to a chemist in Sheffield, travelling by train every day from her home.

She was the woman behind the scenes in their grocer’s shop, where they were famous for their homemade ice lollies. People still remember their delicious lollies, made from Tizer and other bottles of pop.

Mary was a Spiritualist by conviction, with local businessmen and tradesmen alike knocking on her door for advice and guidance. Her “messages” influenced deals and life changes. The respect she commanded was far greater than her diminutive size.

A Moment Longer - Download

2026-07-25T01:30:00.000+01:00

Free Offer

Step into the world of This Window with a free five‑track compilation on Bandcamp—‘Hopeless’, an introduction drawn from recordings spanning nearly four decades. Hear the project evolve from early cassette‑culture experiments to today’s digital work, following the shift in tools, textures, and tone from analogue grit to polished, sculpted production.

This isn’t a “best of”—it’s a cross‑section of fragments, sketches, finished pieces, and recovered moments that map the sound of This Window from 1988 to 2026. Download it free to welcome new listeners in and give long‑time followers a chance to revisit the long, strange arc.

A Moment Longer is now available as a free download.

An analogue fantasy

"A Moment Longer" unfolds from that simple description into something far more evocative and immersive: a slow‑breathing rhythmic synth pulse acting as the heartbeat, a bass line laid across it like a warm weight, and a guitar that drifts in and out of the frame—sometimes melodic, sometimes textural, always slightly out of reach. This sonic tapestry creates a sense of suspension, imbued with a soft, ethereal pull toward intimacy.

The composition reads as a quiet confession, a tender nod to love and the act of making love, capturing those fragile seconds where time seems to stretch and the body becomes its own landscape.

Hopeless 1988 - 2026 by This Window

Originally captured on an 8‑track analogue tape machine, the piece carries the warmth, hiss, and physicality characteristic of its era. The mixdown to a Revox PR99 preserved that analogue depth—slight saturation, rounded transients, and the organic imperfections that define early‑90s cassette culture.

Remastered – a punchier bass

Digitally remastered in 2026, the track now sits with enhanced clarity and spatial definition while retaining the tactile, hand‑made quality of its original form.

Who is really listening to you?

2026-07-24T07:00:58.254+01:00

THE LANGUAGE OF ME.

There’s a particular kind of voice that shows up whenever we decide to share ourselves online. It’s not exactly honesty and it’s not usually reliable either—it’s something in between. A translation. A curated version of “me,” shaped into words that fit the platform, the moment, the audience, the algorithm and maybe what is fashionable to say.

Personal information is traded like currency. Feelings become public property. Details—real or fictional—get posted as evidence that we exist, that we’re experiencing something, that we matter enough to be read. And once you start paying attention, it feels strange. Not only because we’re oversharing, but because we’re turning interior life into a prescriptive format.

No one can hear you?

What is the actual purpose of “telling people about yourself”? Is it connection, validation, or just the comfort of narrating your own story where someone might eventually respond?

Online, self-disclosure isn’t just communication. It’s a language. And like every language, it has rules.

Relatable (but not too complicated),
Vulnerable (but not inconvenient),
Specific (but only in ways that don’t make us look unstable),
Confident (but with enough doubt to feel honest),
Private (unless you want engagement).

And then there’s the question nobody asks out loud: do we share because we want to be known—or because we want to be interpreted in a particular way?

Everybody lies so why be different?

Because there’s also an unspoken belief in “being special.” When we post, we’re essentially saying: my thoughts are worth your time. My life has value as content. There’s a risk in that, even when it’s wrapped in humour or aesthetics. Sometimes it’s pure joy, sometimes it’s loneliness, and sometimes it’s something more complicated: the need to feel chosen, witnessed, or unforgettable.

The strangest part is how quickly our online persona becomes a new job.

You start learning what version of you performs best:

the funniest angle,
the sharpest opinion,
the most emotionally articulate confession,
the lifestyle proof,
the “I’m healing” storyline,
the curated authenticity.

And eventually, the persona doesn’t just represent you—it starts to replace you. Or at least it competes. The real person starts to feel like rough draft material.

This is why the idea of online friends can feel oddly hollow. We assume the people we follow are deeply individual, fully formed beings, but what if they’re just as insecure as us? What if they’re also editing their own life into something easier to consume? What if their confidence is a filter, their clarity is rehearsal, their stability is also a narrative?

Is everyone performing, or is it only us?

The truth is: most personas online aren’t “fake,” exactly. They’re incomplete. They’re selective. Even the most sincere poster is still choosing what to show, what to leave out, what to exaggerate, what to soften, and what to frame. And when the framing becomes habit, the line between confession and creation gets blurry.

Maybe that’s why we keep talking about ourselves—it’s the easiest story to keep telling.

A lot of people don’t trust silence online. Silence feels like failure. Silence is a blank page nobody fills in for you. So we fill it. We post. We comment. We describe. We explain our moods like they’re weather reports from the inside.

Do we think we’re interesting because we are interesting—or because being “interesting” has become a currency we can earn attention with?

The mind keeps measuring itself against the imagined audience.

And then—quietly, almost comically—we bring the real world into the picture. Your boss, for example. The person who isn’t scrolling. The person who might only see the parts of you that show up in emails and meetings and professional small talk. What do they think of your language of “me”? Do they see a fully dimensional human, or just a character who performs competence?

It’s easy to treat online life like it belongs to one audience. But in reality, it’s fragmented—different versions of you exist simultaneously. The you that texts friends. The you that performs at work. The you that posts for strangers. The you that tries to feel brave enough to say the true thing.

All of them are real. All of them are edited.

So what does it mean to share personal information, feelings, details—fact or fiction—and call it connection?

Maybe the answer is simpler than we expect: we share because we want to be seen. But being seen doesn’t always mean being understood. Sometimes we’re admired for the surface. Sometimes we’re dissected. Sometimes we’re believed, sometimes we’re doubted, and sometimes we’re reduced to a label.

And maybe, just maybe, the language of me is also a way to test which parts of ourselves are safe to release.

If I say this, will I be rejected?
If I admit that, will I lose control?
If I tell the truth, will anyone stay?

Or perhaps we’re doing something more daring: trying to build a self that feels coherent across all the places we exist. A self that doesn’t collapse when the platform changes, when the audience changes, when the timeline refreshes.

Maybe the “language of me” isn’t just about what we say. It’s about why we say it—and what we’re secretly hoping the world will do with it.

Because the final question isn’t whether online personas are fake. The final question is: when you speak in the language of you, are you talking to connect—or are you talking to be convincing?

And after you hit post, who are you really talking to?