First in (hopefully a long, fascinating and highly lucrative series) whereby we find people who do interesting things - whether as a hobby or as a job, with friends or alone, artistic or technical - and discover what makes them tick. First off, the inimitable Jadell Zee, paint spraying soldier of fortune, from London NW10. Who do you write with? I write with THE OTHERS.

Tell us about your favourite piece - where it is and what it is My favourite piece is usually the most recent one I did, because I'm still a learner; so each piece is better than the last. It currently resides in an estate in Stockwell, and it reads 'Jadell'.

Why and when did you start doing graffiti? I started doing graffiti around 1984, but didn't really have a tag until summer of '85. I just got into it when Hip Hop arrived over here, along with lots of other teenagers. It was dangerous, a good laugh, and impressed other kids.

What's your favourite thing about it? My favourite thing is putting my final outline on the piece, and watching it start to snap together. You still have a way to go before finishing; like your background, highlights, keyline and whatever; but I dig it when you finally get a picture of how well you've done with your main filling and 3D.

One top tip for the aspiring artist? I would say bring lots of the caps you like with you. There's nothing that can ruin your day more than having paint that doesn't do what you want of it. Apart from terrible weather of course.

Have you ever been caught? If so, what was the first time Between 1986 and 1989 I was at my most prolific illegally, during that time I was in trouble with the law constantly. I won't bore you with the details, but the first time was just typical stupidity - I was tagging on a wall in paint and the police just happened to be driving past, saw me and pulled up next to me. I didn't even notice because I was a bit....'tipsy'.

Okay, I want three inspirations. They can be other people's pieces, bits of music or non-street art or whatever (and why) Mad Society Kings and Heavy Artillery crews; I know they're an obvious choice but they are constantly pushing the boundries of graffiti; you can learn a lot just by taking your time to figure out how they achieved certain paint effects and techniques. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQrEUWPzF8Q&w=700]

In terms of music, if I'm doing a piece then it would be Black Sabbath. The two just go together so well, it's just meant to be. Or, some quality Hip Hop like Little Brother or Action Bronson. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLq8KZQ0L_8&w=700]

I guess the third would be my crew, The Others. Zaki Dee 163, Snatch, Chum 101 and myself. We get it on because we get along.

BMX, skateboard or snowboard? Man I do ALL. BMX has probably been the biggest part of my life out of all the three.....but I snowboard more these days simply because more of my mates do it - all my BMX and skate buddies have either given up, got married and had kids, or are too fuckin' fat to do it any more.

Do you have a favourite nozzle? My favourite cap is probably the default one that comes with Montana 94 cans, which for some puzzling reason you can't buy on its own. This is annoying for me, as it's not my preferred type of paint!

Who/where would you most like to do something? I would most like go back in time and do a fucked up MTA train, in 1982's New York, with FBA or CIA!

Wicked collection of vintage mugshots of musicians over at Flavorwire. The one of Frank Sinatra is, quite frankly, scary, and I wonder if the Johnny Cash one is from when he got caught smuggling pills inside his guitar. Bowie, as you'd expect, looks cool as a cucumber and completely unruffled. Note also how many of them look like they've been taken on Hipstamatic... Axl Rose, 1980

David Bowie, 1976

Elvis Presley, 1976

Frank Sinatra, 1938

Janis Joplin, 1969

Jim Morrison, 1970 (got into trouble on my birthday)

Jimi Hendrix, 1969

Johnny Cash, 1965

Ozzy Osbourne, 1984 (wicked sweatshirt)

Steve Tyler, 1967 (I once did a wee next to him. That makes us practically related)

...a few songs from the upcoming Buddy Holly covers album (preorder here, more info etc). As an avid Dysonology follower you'll have already enjoyed Florence and the Machine's version of Not Fade Away, but there are some other rocking tracks on it, notably:

The Black Keys' cover of Dearest - originally it was called "Umm Oh Yeah (Dearest)":[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNlw9PqXgZc&w=700]

Then there's She & Him covering Oh Boy:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX4Qrt7Oi9I&w=700]

Julian Casablancas doing Rave On (not as good as the original):[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9508lgqaaN8&w=700]

And of course Cee Lo Green doing Baby, I Don't Care (You're So Square) - again, I think I prefer the original:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntQr7DCBgcI&w=700]

Finally we've got My Morning Jacket doing a faithful cover of the beautiful True Love Ways:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwpjg2X8q5s&w=700]

Personally, I think the Black Keys one kicks the arse of the others, though Florence's is pretty flaming good too.

"In the Mail on Sunday, food critic Tom Parker Bowles takes to task the menu writer behind the £10,000-a-head Ark charity dinner attended by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at Kensington Palace last week. And with good reason.

The starter was 'Carpaccio of Maldivian long line caught yellow fin tuna'... wait for it... 'fanning an island of Rio Grande Valley avocado creme fraiche, topped with young coconut, with a splash of Goan lime, coriander and sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds'. In other words, raw tuna with lime-flavoured mush.

For the main course, there was a choice of cod or beef and chips.

Not just any old cod, of course, but a 'Pacific Ocean black cod fillet' which as well as being 'hand-glazed' sat 'hand in hand' with 'a delightful English courgette flower beignet'. (As Parker Bowles pointed out, "that's deep-fried in batter to you and me".)

The beef, naturally, was a roasted fillet of Australian Kobe, 'nestling in a Kent garden of pea puree' and accompanied by - among other things - 'to-die-for triple-cooked Maris Piper chips'.

We won't go into the dessert, it's too upsetting. Suffice to say, it involved a 'snuggling souffle' and a 'swirl of sorbet'.

Of course, if you're going to charge £10,000-a-head for dinner, the food's got to be a cut above the average. But as Parker Bowles - who as the son of you-know-who is now presumably related to the guests of honour at that dinner - concludes his article: "If the prose is purple, the food is bound to bore."

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxq-I_e_KXg&w=700] In the current New Yorker magazine, film critic Anthony Lane finds himself in similar territory. Only it's not the language of the menu he's questioning, it's the look of the dishes.

Lane is reviewing Michael Winterbottom's just-opened big-screen version of the recent British television series The Trip (above), in which the comics Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan tour the north of England sampling restaurant menus for a newspaper article.

"What TV chefs fail to realise, and what Winterbottom observes at once," says Lane, "is that food loses half its savour and allure in the instant of being filmed.

"When our heroes are presented with baby queen scallops and parsnip coulis, you don't think, Yum, gimme me some of that. You think, Yech, crime scene."

Lane, who gives The Trip a surprisingly good review (it didn't look on telly as though it would make much of a film), concludes:

"No other movie is quite so alert to the lukewarm rictus of interest and anticipation which you are forced to adopt, as a fine diner, while a hovering maitre d' - not unlike a herald in one of Shakespeare's history plays, announcing a bevy of dukes - recites the ingredients of your latest dish".

Hear, hear.

By Nigel Horne in The First Post.

Rather natty illustrator. Check his blog and his website.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_U92bLGro0&w=700] Wicked, wicked, wicked song.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894) was the novelist behind Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A literary celebrity during his lifetime, he is now one of the 30 most translated authors in the world, just below Charles Dickens. His parents were heavily religious and, throughout his life, Stevenson had health problems (tuberculosis or similar). A bit of an eccentric, a sickly only-child, he found it hard to make friends at school. Didn't even read until he was seven or eight, but before then would still dictate stories to his mum and nurse.

When he was old enough to go to university, he told his folks he wanted to pursue a life of letters rather than law (they weren't that surprised), and he started to act and dress more bohemian: he already had long hair but his dress was more velvety and unconventional. He never finished his degree, instead he was drawn more and more into travel and writing. The combination of the two, though, ruined his health. He got married, tried to settle in Europe and the US, looking for a place with a climate where he could be comfortable.

In 1888, Stevenson set sail from San Francisco with his family. They floated from island to island over several voyages, and ended up settling in Samoa, where he took the native name Tusitala (Samoan for "Teller of Tales"). His influence spread to the Samoans, who consulted him for advice, and he soon became involved in local politics. He always struggled with overwork and exhaustion. Here's Wikipedia's account of his last few years:

For a time during 1894 Stevenson felt depressed; he wondered if he had exhausted his creative vein and completely worked himself out. He wrote that he had "overworked bitterly". He felt more clearly that, with each fresh attempt, the best he could write was "ditch-water". He even feared that he might again become a helpless invalid. He rebelled against this idea: "I wish to die in my boots; no more Land of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from a horse — ay, to be hanged, rather than pass again through that slow dissolution." He then suddenly had a return of his old energy and he began work on Weir of Hermiston. "It's so good that it frightens me," he is reported to have exclaimed. He felt that this was the best work he had done. He was convinced, "sick and well, I have had splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very little ... take it all over, damnation and all, would hardly change with any man of my time."

Without knowing it, he was to have his wish fulfilled. During the morning of 3 December 1894, he had worked hard as usual on Weir of Hermiston. During the evening, while conversing with his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine, he suddenly exclaimed, "What's that!" He then asked his wife, "Does my face look strange?" and collapsed beside her. He died within a few hours, probably of a cerebral haemorrhage, at the age of 44. The Samoans insisted on surrounding his body with a watch-guard during the night and on bearing their Tusitala upon their shoulders to nearby Mount Vaea, where they buried him on a spot overlooking the sea. Stevenson had always wanted his 'Requiem' inscribed on his tomb.

Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill.

Stevenson was loved by the Samoans and the engraving on his tombstone was translated to a Samoan song of grief which is well known and still sung in Samoa.

The guy's quotes:

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.

You cannot run away from weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?

All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a poor substitute for life.

You can read Kant by yourself, if you wanted to; but you must share a joke with someone else.

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

Even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week.

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.

Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind, spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.

The price we have to pay for money is sometimes liberty.

You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us.

I am in the habit of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered.

It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves.

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.

Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own.

Of what shall a man be proud, if he is not proud of his friends?

So long as we are loved by others I should say that we are almost indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.

Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.

When it comes to my own turn to lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness and fatigue, and whatever be my destiny afterward, I shall be glad to lie down with my fathers in honor. It is human at least, if not divine.

You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.

To an Island Princess From Songs of Travel

Since long ago, a child at home, I read and longed to rise and roam, Where'er I went, whate'er I willed, One promised land my fancy filled. Hence the long roads my home I made; Tossed much in ships; have often laid Below the uncurtained sky my head, Rain-deluged and wind-buffeted: And many a thousand hills I crossed And corners turned - Love's labour lost, Till, Lady, to your isle of sun I came, not hoping; and, like one Snatched out of blindness, rubbed my eyes, And hailed my promised land with cries.

Yes, Lady, here I was at last; Here found I all I had forecast: The long roll of the sapphire sea That keeps the land's virginity; The stalwart giants of the wood Laden with toys and flowers and food; The precious forest pouring out To compass the whole town about; The town itself with streets of lawn, Loved of the moon, blessed by the dawn, Where the brown children all the day Keep up a ceaseless noise of play, Play in the sun, play in the rain, Nor ever quarrel or complain; - And late at night, in the woods of fruit, Hark! do you hear the passing flute?

I threw one look to either hand, And knew I was in Fairyland. And yet one point of being so I lacked. For, Lady (as you know), Whoever by his might of hand, Won entrance into Fairyland, Found always with admiring eyes A Fairy princess kind and wise. It was not long I waited; soon Upon my threshold, in broad noon, Gracious and helpful, wise and good, The Fairy Princess Moe stood.

Tantira, Tahiti, Nov. 5, 1888.

(Via crackunit / @jamesreilley)

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[vimeo http://vimeo.com/24635786 w=700&h=450] Here's the music video for Florence + The Machine's take on the classic Buddy Holly track "Not Fade Away." This version of "Not Fade Away" appears on the new Buddy Holly tribute album, RAVE ON BUDDY HOLLY, due in stores June 28th, 2011. Film by Tabitha Denholm.

Artist and photographer Ben Heine does these. Click here to see more of them. [slideshow]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=09BmlFlVotk&w=700] Daniel Day Lewis sounds a bit different as Donald Duck...

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTYGmjgSMv8&w=700] Big old motorbike display by Italian police in the Fifties. Either that or it's one bike and the mushrooms are starting to really kick in.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Iz9qOhAzdc&w=700] "Mojo So Dope" lives on the M.O.T.M II Deluxe CD-DVD addition of the album. Directed, shot and edited by Jason Goldwatch.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GVrO1VYAOI&w=700] Ronseal. Pretty forking cool.

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[vimeo http://vimeo.com/24572222 w=700&h=450] "By summer 2010, the expansion of bike lanes in NYC exposed a clash of long-standing bad habits — such as pedestrians jaywalking, cyclists running red lights, and motorists plowing through crosswalks.

"By focusing on one intersection as a case study, my video aims to show our interconnection and shared role in improving the safety and usability of our streets.

"The video is part of a larger campaign I created called '3-Way Street'. Please see blog.ronconcocacola.com for more details."

Martin Sheen had this as his Desert Island disc the other day. Like most other works by Pachelbel and other pre-1700 composers, the Canon remained forgotten for centuries and was rediscovered only in the 20th century. Several decades after it was first published in 1919, the piece became extremely popular, and today it is frequently played at weddings and included on classical music compilations, along with other famous Baroque pieces such as Air on the G String by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was originally scored for three violins and basso continuo and paired with a gigue in the same key. The circumstances of the piece's composition are wholly unknown. One writer hypothesized that the Canon may have been composed for Johann Christoph Bach's wedding, on 23 October 1694, which Pachelbel was at (Bach's mates and family all did the music for his wedding).

Pachelbel's Canon combines the techniques of canon and ground bass. Canon is a polyphonic device in which several voices play the same music, entering in sequence. In Pachelbel's piece, there are three voices engaged in canon (see Example 1), but there is also a fourth voice, the basso continuo, which plays an independent part. The bass voice keeps repeating the same two-bar line throughout the piece. The common musical term for this is ostinato, or ground bass. Beautiful piece of music, but perhaps a trifle dull if you play bass.

There is a huge number of variations and recordings.

Here it is on the original instruments [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvNQLJ1_HQ0&w=700]

And another version... [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stCKjZniMsQ&w=700]

Actually some of them aren't so bad. Google can jog on though. And Merrill Lynch is just a bit weird. That said, it's not so much getting the right answer as showing the right approach. Hence me feeling most confident about getting a job at Gryphon Scientific. Procter & Gamble: Sell me an invisible pen. 

Facebook: Twenty five racehorses, no stopwatch, five tracks.  Figure out the top three fastest horses in the fewest number of races.

Citigroup: What is your strategy at table tennis?

Google: You are climbing a staircase. Each time you can either take one step or two. The staircase has n steps. In how many distinct ways can you climb the staircase?

Capital One: How do you evaluate Subway’s five-foot long sub policy?

Gryphon Scientific: How many cocktail umbrellas are there in a given time in the United States?

Enterprise Rent-A-Car: Would you be okay hearing “no” from seven out of 10 customers.

Goldman Sachs: Suppose you had eight identical balls. One of them is slightly heavier and you are given a balance scale. What’s the fewest number of times you have to use the scale to find the heavier ball?

Towers Watson: Estimate how many planes are there in the sky.

Lubin Lawrence: If you could describe Hershey, Godiva and Dove chocolate as people, how would you describe them?

Pottery Barn: If I was a genie and could give you your dream job, what and where would it be?

Kiewit Corp.: What did you play with as a child?

VWR International: How would you market a telescope in 1750 when no one knows about orbits, moons etc.

Diageo North America: If you walk into a liquor store to count the unsold bottles, but the clerk is screaming at you to leave, what do you do?

Brown & Brown Insurance: How would you rate your life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Jane Street Capital: What is the smallest number divisible by 225 that consists of all 1’s and 0’s?

UBS: If we were playing Russian roulette and had one bullet, I randomly spun the chamber and fired but nothing was fired. Would you rather fire the gun again or respin the chamber and then fire on your turn?

Merrill Lynch: Tell me about your life from kindergarten onwards.

Susquehanna International Group: Five guys, all of different ages, enter a bar and take a seat at a round table. What is the probability that they are seated in ascending order of age?

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...and no, your beard won't help you here, Germaine. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBxqptNa6-8&w=500]