Jason Bradbury

Last weekend the dad-bike was stolen! I am now looking at replacements and I’ve decided it may be my chance to build the ultimate in rad two-wheeled dad transport. The image above is a Photoshop mash-up of the kind of gear I need. I don’t expect to tick all the boxes but with your help, I might get close. My requirements are: I need to be able to style-it-out while keeping under the radar of bike villains. I am considering a bike with some form of power assistance for when my legs let me down (a hydrogen system is featured above). I shop, therefore I… need a basket. Let me know your thoughts.

See my review of the Top Five Skateboards soon on The Gadget Show.

Ray Kurzweil is a brilliant scientist and futurist. His book maps out a startling vision of the fusion of biology (namely us) and technology. It’s a dense read, but it’s not a difficult book to understand because Kurzweil is fond of graphs! His sections on Moore’s Law are fascinating and he makes it clear that, because of the exponential growth in computing power,  those of us who are around for the next fifty years will see Star-Trekian advances in technology. ‘It is reasonable to expect [the] hardware that can emulate human-brain functionality to be available for approximately one thousands dollars by around 2020.’ I just wish it was lighter, so I could carry it with me on the tube! Check out more books from My Library.

In order to take part in the gadget transport race of the century for tonight’s inaugural episode of The Gadget Show Series 10, I had to bring my Sinclair C5 back from the dead. Two men made that possible, Karl and Martin from C5Alive. At one, point we had my 1985 electric C5 (featured above) running at over 30mph! However, that lead to a stripped gearbox and as vintage Sinclair gearboxes are in short supply, we decided to gear my machine back down to around 18mph. See how the race turned out in tonight’s episode.

I just received an email from Stephen Walter - the artist who drew the picture that’s pride of place in my office. He’s part of a new exhibition in London at the Purdy Hicks Gallery in London from 9th Oct to 15 Nov 2008.

Stephen Walter is an artist. I saw a picture by him in a London hotel and I was hooked. It was a massive map of an island (taller than me!) drawn in ink and pencil and when I looked closer, I realised the island was London. While geographically correct, the places featured on Walter’s exhaustively detailed maps are interpreted by him; there are references to celebrities, odd historical facts and quirky descriptions of the kinds of people who live in certain areas, where CCTV cameras are and lots of creative spelling.

My picture is above my fireplace in my office and features all the land that, in Walter’s mind, is surrounded The Surrey Seas.

You can see the place where I live in the photo above: ‘The urban(e) village of St.Margarets.’ It’s just below the words ‘Drunken Toffs’ :->

In many ways, this book is the research document for the book Max Brooks wrote next ‘World War Z’, which happens to be one of my all time favourite reads. ‘The Zombie Survival Guide’ is perfect public transport fodder. See more in My Library.