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Chris Noble writer

28 July 2009

designtransport

HEAR ME WHIR

First there was the old Honda Insight, a car for every adventurous, early eco-nerd. Then came the Toyota Prius, a bland family hybrid that pro skaters used their newly-upped paycheques and trade-in money from their Honda Civics to buy. Next in the field of notable electrically-enhanced environmentally (less un-) friendly motors was that hotshot electric Tesla, priced beyond most people’s reach. And now, we’ve come full circle, back to a new Insight. Which looks like a Prius. A bit dull.

But the reasonably-heeled eco-conscious Kev and Sharon (perhaps that should be updated to Carter and Poppy) will soon be able to get in on the game with next year’s offering from Honda, the CR-Z. (That stands for “Compact Renaissance Zero”. Like, whatever.) Under the hood it’s a plain ol’ hybrid—no sign of plug-in-ability—but it has plenty of bells and whistles to make it stand out amongst the Golfs and Cavaliers: LED lighting, nineteen-inch alloys and, if they stick close to the concept, great overall styling.

One thing it won’t have, though, is a roar from a “fat” exhaust pipe as it burns around Charles Street car park: instead it’ll probably sound more like a lightcycle from Tron, which may well be a game-changer in itself.

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film

Banksy caught on film

Regular Level-online readers will remember the review of the Banksy exhibition that occurred last summer here in the massive that is more officially known as Bristol City. I’m guessing it was a firm success—over 350,000 people swamped the city’s medium-sized museum during the one-off season when Banksy took over the place with his take on art. It was, in a nutshell, bloody brilliant. Now you’ve seen the graf, watch the movie: yes, Banksy’s gone and made a movie. I for one can’t wait.

Mark Noble, 05 March 2010

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art

Love to Haiti

To Haiti With Love is a worthwhile cause with a slight difference: when you donate, you actually get a piece of artwork as a digital file. You can send this on to a friend or simply use the image as your own desktop wallpaper. Each piece of work will be sold as a digital postcard for £1 to raise money to help the situation in Haiti.

There are artists from around the world donating work, with more getting involved daily as this project snowballs. So far, the list includes David Shrigley, Genevieve Gauckler, Bob Kronbauer, Rob Ryan, Simon Peplow, Alex Trochut and Anthony Burrill with photographers Ye Rin Mok, Cass Bird and Valerie Phillips recently signing up.

Lee Basford, 06 February 2010

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photo

Olympic metal

Those cafe racer-riding photo-nerds at Olympus have churned out another iteration of the E-P-series, this time one for the masses. (That is, the masses that would have bought an E-P1 or -2 if only it weren’t for their fiddliness and pricey price tags.) The new E-PL1 is the iMac of the bunch, it doing most of the things its fancier brothers do—take quality shots, shoot 720p video, feel P-R-O-hip while you swap lenses—only more simply, for a few hundred quid cheaper, and with the backup of a built-in flash.

And you can get it in red.

Chris Noble, 05 February 2010

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