Money Transfer Services and Best of Britannia

I have recently had cause to find a serious alternative to cross-border money exchanges since my spat with PayPal last summer which has left me relying on other methods to take payments for work. Google Wallet will only work within the country in which you are resident; a couple of other transfer services wouldn't identify my bank correctly; direct bank-to-bank transfers are costly if you are crossing borders (this is a pleonectic curiosity of UK and US banking - it is, of course, free within Europe). After a bit of research, we discovered the Richard Branson-backed Transferwise, which is not only an amazing concept - peer-to-peer money transfers - but is cheaper than banks and has had excellent reviews in The Economist and Financial Times.
We tried it. It worked. It was inexpensive. OK, so it is not a full transaction service but it works if both parties trust each other. Definitely worth supporting.

On holiday in Brighton just now and although the weather has been decent, we've only had one really warm day. I went up to London last week to visit the "Best of Britannia" exhibition, which is a kind of trade-fair which is also open to the public, showcasing makers who make their work in Britain, generally from British materials. It was brilliant to meet up with some of my favourites, such as Susannah Hall (who has once again helped me out with a "shirt emergency", more on that later in the week):

and also with the lovely people at Cravat Club:

One of the best things about the show was meeting new people and I spent ages talking to two makers in particular Denise of Deni-Deni leather goods, a remarkable family business which, as Denise said, will make "anything from leather, but I'd rather not do a sofa"!

I've rather boringly commissioned a new wallet from her but I am sure more will follow. Still on the theme of leather, I also spotted this remarkable chair by TwoMakers, made from bicycle tubing and saddle-leather. Being a cyclist and also a fan of Ron Arad's "Rover Chair", this appealed enormously:

Rather like the Rover Chair which I saw in "One Off" in the early 1980s, I couldn't afford this one either and will probably live to regret not stretching myself to buy it!

I also spent loads of time talking to Andrew English, a fellow jeweller, about jewellery, technology and politics. A lot of politics! I really like his "Moebius" bangles and rings, not a new idea but freshly and sharply interpreted here:

The main revelation of the day was, for me, the discovery of a British watchmaker who is actually making the movements which go into the watches... Garrick Watchmakers.

Unlike the "Randonneur" chair above, I was really surprised to learn how (relatively) inexpensive their hand-made movements were and I'm now really excited by the idea of making a watch with a completely hand-made movement in it.

One of the best things I got to try was tea which has been grown in the UK. I knew that this had been done but have never previously tried it. There are two tea plantations in the UK, one in Scotland, the other in Cornwall and it was the Cornish "Tregothan" tea that I tried (no photographs). I normally can't drink black tea as the tannin makes me nauseous but this black tea is so low in tannin that it didn't affect me at all. The green tea is wonderfully fresh too. Unfortunately, I forgot to go back and pick up a packet.

I got to Folkestone last week for the open-night in the Creative Quarter, stopping off first at Dungeness to collect lots of new scrap metal. A visit to Dungeness is worthwhile for the unique landscape, wildlife and plants in the shadow of the nuclear power-station (which sounds odd, I know!).

In the evening, it was off to Cursley and Bond to their evening event and to meet and have dinner with a couple of my most enthusiastic supporters, as well as Chris and Nicola who own the gallery. I also dropped off a lot of the stock I had been working on for the last few weeks before the holiday.