Made my way into work listening to BBC Radio4’s Between Ourselves programme today. It was a informal interview/chat between Tom Dixon, inventor of the Jack lamp, creative director of affordable stylish furniture store Habitat [here is their site, un-navigable without Flash] and Kenneth Grange, founding partner of Pentagram [their site again un-navigable without Flash… couldn’t even get a phone number for them if I was a really important client, etc, etc… sigh], venerable uberdesigner of the London taxi, the Intercity train, the Kenwood Chef – amongst other things.

The thing that struck me listening to Grange was the same thing that I saw when seeing photos of Robin and Lucienne Day, or Charles and Ray Eames late in their lives/careers. They had, and were still having so much bloody fun designing things.

Listening to Grange speak made vow to carve myself some of that fun from now on – starting entering with my first architectural competition since CarFreeLondon: a competition to design a kiosk on the Thames near Cleopatra’s Needle.

Be quick to listen to the programme. It will only be there for seven days before being replace by the next programme unfortunately(roll on the Creative Archive!!!!) please do, it’s only 30 minutes and while it’s not a particularly theoretical or deep grilling of either man, it’s a smashing fillip if you’re a designer.