Just downloaded Google Mobile, which was surprisingly easy to do from the fixed-line internet. Once downloaded it (takes five seconds) your internet searches on your phone default to its current location. Works brilliantly for me. I’m already planning my lunch.

Lovely duet between Antony Hegarty and Bjork. Taken from the forthcoming Antony and the Johnson’s album, Swanlights.

Love will really tear you apart

Bet they put their Heart and Soul in to it too (cheers Chris!)

New York City, colour-coded by race

Eric Fischer maps US cities by colour-coding them according to US census data. In the image below – one pixel represents 25 people – orange is hispanic, red is white; blue is black and green is asian. First thing you notice is how polarised it all is. Uptown Manhattan sticks out like a pair of sore fingers: almost exclusively caucasian on both sides of Central Park. But see how this contrasts starkly with the cluster around Chinatown (green circle at the bottom of the island), or the long, blue plume of Harlem, itself separated by the hispanic enclave of Spanish Harlem, represented on the map as an oblong of orange.

Schmit has charted many US cities: the map of Detroit is even more revealing. The full Flickr set here. You wonder how a similar map of London might compare. Would it show the sprinkle of hundreds and thousands that we often associate with the old Smoke? The London Profiler is the closest I could find but as a web-based app it’s a little clunky to provide a definative answer.

“The level of concentration [of News Corp media] already seen in the UK is substantially greater than would be allowed in Italian law. We are already way past any Berlusconi moment in Britain.” #murdoch

Claire Enders, Analyst, cited in Media Guardian

#swedishelections Sweden’s social democrats lose a second election. The far-right, anti-immigration Swedish Democrats win first 20 seats. Here: excellent feature by (spendid reportage) by Andrew Brown on why Europe’s most egalitarian country is heading further rightwards.

Listening to Waterproof London‘s brilliant new album of mash-ups: who would have thought that Jay-Z and Dolly Parton or Dire Straits and Ce Ce Penistone would get along so nicely. #mashup

I’ve just signed this open letter to Vince Cable, our dear old secretary of state for business innovation and skills. The letter beseeches him to prevent Rupert Murdoch from gaining 100% control of BskyB. Uncle Vince, after all, has the ability to halt the takeover on the grounds of preserving media plurality in this country. If the deal goes through, one company – controlled by one family – will be the biggest and most wealthy commercial television broadcaster. It already controls roughly half of the UK’s national press. That makes me shudder. Cross-media legislation is meant to prevent this kind of deal, if you agree with me, please sign and send the letter too. #murdoch

The Brighton Line

Cheers to Andrew for pointing me towards this map of the Brighton underground, by local artist Sean Sims, which is as witty and it is imaginative. Have a look at the bottom right-hand corner where you find the station for Beachy Head (terminus), a reference to its popularity for suicide, or towards the top where you will find that Crystal Palace is closed, a nod towards a bit of football team rivalry. Nice to see that Nick Cave has his own station too. It is a very good map, but not as good as this.

The XX

The XX

Originally uploaded by Birmingham Live!

Delighted The XX won the Mercury. I was taken by how humble they were when they accepted their prize. Such dignified English teenagers – in the music industry.

The search for “areas of outstanding urban beauty” is the theme of a novel photography competition run by Cabe (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment). You have until October to send a snap of your favourite bits of town. Little chance of winning of course, but I’ve nevertheless sent them one of our last visit to Saltaire, near Bradford.

Although this clever little app suggests I vote for Diane Abbot (we are in agreement to a scale of 71%, apparently). I am voting for Ed Milliband (with whom I share a more modest 60% rate) in the Labour leadership election. #labourleadership

I really like Phil Gyford’s restructuring of the Guardian website (using the Guardian Open Platform). You read it online, but browse it like a newspaper, one page at a time.

I never knew Fought the Law, and the Law…

I never knew I Fought the Law, and the Law Won was not written by The Clash. It was originally recorded by Sonny Curtis and The Crickets (post Buddy Holly) in 1959. This (and many other gems in this comprehensive list of songs you didn’t know were covers

Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov reveals the Reichstag’s violent past

Thanks to my old friend Sami Haapavaara (himself Porvoo’s answer to William Eggleston) for directing me towards the work of Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov. I like his work a lot. His basic premise is simple enough: artist travels to various European cities – Berlin, Vienna, Leningrad – and revisits the precise locations of old war photographs and then reshoots the image from the same spot. The results, once merged, are as beautiful as they are haunting.

If David Cameron is admitting that public sector funding levels won’t be restored after the deficit is cut, then he is also admitting that the cuts are driven by ideology rather than necessity.