Used copies of this book can still be find online (e.g. AbeBooks).

Domic Davies is responsible for the photographies displayed in the famous Big Fat Cookbook:

In this enormous, beautiful book, we hear the full story of the meteoric rise of Heston Blumenthal and The Fat Duck, birthplace of snail porridge and bacon-and-egg ice cream, and encounter the passion, perfection and weird science behind the man and the restaurant.

Heston Blumenthal is widely acknowledged to be a genius, and The Fat Duck has twice been voted the Best Restaurant in the World by a peer group of top chefs. But he is entirely self-taught, and the story of his restaurant has broken every rule in the book. His success has been borne out of his pure obsession, endless invention and a childish curiosity into how things work – whether it’s how smell affects taste, what different flavours mean to us on a biological level, or how temperature is distributed in the centre of a soufflé. (from the editor’s website)

See more excerpt from the book over at Daily Icon. Visit The Fat Duck official website (before being a book, it’s a three-Michelin-starred restaurant in the UK). Learn more about chef Heston Blumenthal on Wikipedia. If you can’t afford the full version of this book (it sells at around 150$ dollars on Amazon) don’t worry : there’s a lowered-price edition of it, selling at around 30$:

The cookbook hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a “showstopper” and by Jeffrey Steingarten of Vogue as “the most glorious spectacle of the season…like no other book I have seen in the past twenty years” is now available in a reduced-price edition. With a reduced trim size but an identical interior, this lavishly illustrated, stunningly designed, and gorgeously photographed masterpiece takes you inside the head of maverick restaurateur Heston Blumenthal. Separated into three sections (History; Recipes; Science), the book chronicles Blumenthal’s improbable rise to fame and, for the first time, offers a mouth-watering and eye-popping selection of recipes from his award-winning restaurant. He also explains the science behind his culinary masterpieces, the technology and implements that make his alchemical dishes come to life. Designed by acclaimed artist Dave McKean—and filled with photographs by Dominic Davies—this artfully rendered celebration of one of the world’s most innovative and renowned chefs is a foodie’s dream. (Amazon)

In any case, be sure to take a look at the Big Fat Undertaking blog: someone actually attempting to do more with this book than looking at the picture.

By now most of us are aware of this story : Mary Bale, a woman living in UK was caught on a CCTV camera dumping a cat in a trash bin. The video was uploaded on Youtube, went viral and made the news worldwide. The response was quick and intense : sheer outrage. Mashable has a good summary of the ways this anger was expressed all over the Internet. Quite a normal reaction, one may think. Yet, something doesn’t add up. How come suddenly nobody seems to be too concerned about the use of CCTV cameras to spy on citizens?

Those are serious topics in our times : the respect of private life, the surveillance of citizens by the Government, the rising specter of Big Brother. It’s one of the recurrent topic on Boing Boing : the rising number of CCTV cameras in big cities, specifically in the UK (try this customized search).

Looks like Big Brother isn’t the problem in this particular scenario : the problem is that we don’t want others to spy on us. But if we happen to find ourselves in a position where we can spy on our neighbors, and maybe catch them doing something we think is wrong, then CCTV cameras are ok, surveillance is good, the system is working just fine.

Previously on Skandalon

Merrick Angle is a Freelance illustrator and designer based in France. Check his About page for a list of his clients. Visit his official website to buy his stuff.

About Tatsuro Kiuchi:

Tatsuro Kiuchi was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1966. Originally a graduate in Biology at International Christian University in Tokyo, He made the change to an art career after graduating with distinction from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. He started illustrating mostly children’s books with several publishers in the US and Japan and eventually branched out into editorial work in magazines and the illustration of book jackets and advertising commissions. His first picture book “The Lotus Seed” (text by Sherry Garland / Harcourt Brace & Company) has sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide, and has been commissioned by such clients as Royal Mail to do Christmas Stamp Collection in 2006, and Starbucks for Worldwide Holiday Promotion “Pass the Cheer” in 2007. He now lives in Tokyo Japan. (Profile)

Visit his official English website, his blog and his Tumblr account. Some of his artwork can be bought online. I first came to know this artist via Coudal Partners.

In the 50s and 60s, as the whole ‘Mad Men’ advertising agency era was booming, no one came close to Gescheidt for innovative photography, and he created numerous campaigns, magazine, book, and album covers. His images often both flattered and mocked American sensibilities, and his ’30 Ways To Stop Smoking’ series from 1964 remains a landmark in satirical conceptual photography. (Field Of Vision: Alfred Gescheidt)

Previously on Skandalon