I went on holiday recently. It was the kind of getaway that was very planned. Actually, it was timetabled on a colour-coded spreadsheet. Which was useful, considering the distances we were traveling, but it also killed the joy of exploring the remotest parts of the UK. 

So when I read about Experimental Tourism in the well-designed zine FAQNP, I was happy to discover a method of travel that didn't depend on a spreadsheet.

Experimental Tourism is a way of traveling where you follow odd-ball rules to plan your journey. The Laboratory of Experimental Travel, or Latourex, is a dictionary of such ideas and rules. They are certain to transform your holiday.

Photo: Lomography's Photohuggers 

An example would be Counter Travel, where you: "Travel with a camera, but don't take pictures of the famous landmarks and tourist attractions. Stand with your back to the sight and snap that view instead."

My particular favourite is Insider Travel: "Explore a place following the suggestions of the locals. Do exactly what they say. Try doing this in your home town, on the pretence that you are a foreigner." Now there's an excellent plan for a mini-holiday.

Twice a year, creative agency Boat uproot their HQ to a foreign city for a month, and create a magazine about that city.

Their first issue, about Sarajevo, is out now and includes some great contributions from Max Knight, Jonathan Cherry, Agatha A Nitecka and Zoë Barker. 

It may or may not be the next playground craze, but Super Strumps are a set of top trumps which aim to challenge sexist stereotypes of women.

Syd Moore and Heidi Wigmore wrote and illustrated the deck of cards for the Women of the World festival. I got in touch to ask them about the thinking behind the project, and what children's games can do for feminism.

How did you get the idea for Super Strumps?

Heidi: We started talking about the Essex Girl stereotype after a brainstorming meeting for the Women of the World festival. We began listing all the female stereotypes we could think of. Within the hour we had around 200. But what really got us thinking, was that we couldn't think up nearly as many for men. Why are there are so many negative labels for women? We wanted to see if we could, somehow, turn stereotypes around to find the positives aspects of what are, after all, complex multi-faceted female natures.

Syd: I've been rehabilitating the Essex Girl for a few years now. For instance, I'm identifying links between the Essex Witches and the victimisation of the Essex Girl. I'm also a part-time lecturer, and a few years ago I found out that a lot of my female students still felt stigmatised by the Essex Girl stereotype. One recalled an incident when she'd been harrassed in Turkey, purely because the local men found out she was from Essex. She was nine at the time. 

Which stereotype was hardest to transform into something positive?

Syd: For me it was the It Girl. Who wants to celebrate a parasitic, superficial airhead? In the end, we did find positives in the stereotype and I like the twist Heidi brought with the visuals.

Heidi: As the artist on the project, my challenge was to seek out positive images of women and some were more problematic than others. If you try googling Essex Girl, for example, just see what you get - porn and girls losing their knickers. So I drew her as a defiant figure instead; as her own woman who doesn't give a damn. 

How have people responded to your project?

Heidi: We've had an overwealmingly positive reaction to the cards from women of all ages and backgrounds. Men love them too! We launched the project at the Women of the World Festival and over the entire weekend maybe 3 women objected to the use of stereotypes in any shape or form. But we always intended the game to be a trigger for debate. We say, please read the back story, the subtext, take a good look at what the cards are really saying and then discuss.

When you're playing the game, which card do wish you hadn't been dealt, and which one is the game-winner?

Heidi: The best cards to have in your pack are The Feminist, The Superwoman and, generally, any of the older women. This is interesting as the women we consulted found the older women aspirational. We discovered women are crying out for older role models as women over 40 are increasingly erased from main stream media.

Super Strumps draws strength from being very funny, like The Spinster's ability to talk cat. Is humour the best way to confront these kind of stereotypes, or can it make this issue seem trivial?

Syd: Everyone knows what the negative connotations are with these stereotypes. What we're doing is celebrating their positive qualities that are usually overlooked. I think it's really important not to be too preachy about overturning these attitudes. Tell me I can have fun and change the world while I'm at it, and like most Essex Girls, I'm in there like a shot! 

Heidi: We think humour is a powerful tool for debate. I don't think humour trivialises the seriousness of these issues, rather it reveals the absurdity of reducing women to simplistic labels.

My village has a tiny but pretty village green with a stream, a bench or two, some tall leafy trees and a red telephone box.

We have pretty good mobile phone coverage in the village and not that long ago BT decided it was no longer feasible for it to keep the local phone box up and running.

However, the villagers are a traditional lot and didn’t want to lose the box, which has been a feature of the green for many years. So the Parish Council decided it would take part in BT’s Adopt A Kiosk scheme and take on the ownership and maintenance of the box itself.

How this works is that the Council pays BT £1 for the box, BT removes the telephone equipment and provides electricity and lighting to the kiosk for up to five years. The Council is then responsible for its upkeep.

Through the local village magazine, opinions were canvassed about what other uses the telephone box could be put to. Suggestions included a paperback book and magazine library, a drop-off point for spare garden produce for villagers to help themselves to, and a tiny tourist information point with display boards about local walks and history.

Some people also came forward with offers of donations of money or time to keep the box maintained. Already enough money has been raised for the upkeep of the box for the next year and a half.

This project is going to need volunteers to keep it going, but more than that, it’s going to need honesty to make it work. The final use for the box is still under discussion, but whatever is decided I hope that I live in a village where you can leave books out in public for people to borrow and return, or vegetables for anyone to help themselves to, trusting that no one will steal or be greedy.

Who knows if it will work. I’ll keep you posted.

If you enjoy discovering the work of emerging illustrators and designers, then head over to Howkapow. It's an online design shop, and soon to be creative agency, founded by designer Cat How and her husband Rog in December 2010.

Aside from running Howkapow, we discovered that Cat keeps a mean collection of earrings. I couldn't resist asking her why and when she began collecting them.

When did you start collecting earrings? 

I got my ears pierced when I was quite young and started collecting them in my early teens. I've always been a bit of a magpie for sparkly, glittery, colourful things. My friends even call me Cat Butcher because just like ol' Pat from Eastenders the big, kitsch Christmassy earrings are my favourites. I'm aiming to have 365 pairs soon so that I can wear a different one for each day of the year.

When did you begin making and designing earrings yourself?

I started in my last year of university in 2004. I was doing an English Literature degree which was all about writing and abstract thoughts. I just had the urge to start making real stuff with my hands again. I've made earrings out of any old junk I found lying around: old photographic film, magnets, poker chips, old records and lego. 

Have you always displayed them just as you have photographed?

No! It's taken a long time to get this current display working but I think we've nailed it. Previous displays have included old Bonsai trees that have died and which I've re-painted in bright acrylics and glittery nail polish.

What's your favorite pair? Where are they from?

That's like being asked to choose between The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. I love them all for different reasons and each pair has a story. But my favourites are the ones I designed, made and wore on my wedding d ay. They're the huge, transparent, tear-dropped shaped earrings on the bottom left of the photo. I got them printed with the same pattern I used for my wedding dress. They're massive! 

Do you have any magical or curious earring stories?

A friend once made me earrings out of antique forks, and then someone ate prawns with them. I've also made earrings out of Crayola crayons, which came in very handy at a pub quiz once.

Can you give me a potted history of Howkapow? What's your mission? 

Howkapow opened in December 2010 as an online shop supporting new, independent illustrators and designers. Many of the people we feature are recent graduates who have a particular Howkapow style: fun, colourful, clever and yet simple.

We want to help people who are fresh out of art school get a foothold in the commercial world. So we're collaborating on new products with a couple of illustrators, and looking into getting a shop space in Bristol. We're also setting up an agency to provide emerging creatives with promotional advice and support, alongside selling their products.

Where did the name 'Howkapow' come from?

The name is a combination of our surname, How, and the fact that everything we stock is colourful, loud and in-your-face, so - kapow!

Find more about Howkapow over on their website.

I'm a little slow to the party with Apartamento Magazine, 'an everyday life interiors magazine,' as it's been around since 2008. But I bought my first copy of it this week, and found it too good not to share.

I am not a fan of interiors magazines, generally. We've been picking desks and chairs for oh comely's new office, and Des has had to endure me sighing at each new webpage of options. I hate choosing furniture.

Apartamento's interiors are different. It interviews a teenage girl about her bedroom, photographs a family's collection of plants and lets you photocopy your own potato-pattern wallpaper. Its house is thoroughly lived-in and full of personality.

This year’s BAFTA for Short Animation was awarded to a university project by the talented Mikey Please, who studied MA Animation at the Royal College of Art and graduated last year. Please's animation is called 'The Eagleman Stag' and it's a 9 minute film about Peter, a man obsessed with his quickening perception of time as he ages. It's shot using handmade sets and characters. They're all in monochrome too, which makes the film even more moody. 

If you want to watch the animation on the big screen, it's going to be screened at Somerset House next month as part of Pick Me Up. For now, you can watch Please's short, time-lapse documentary on the making of 'The Eagelman Stag'. It shows the painstaking attention to detail, and sleepless nights, behind the film. It's also proof that the awards season is more than just beige dresses and teary acceptance speeches.

The best part of making a magazine is having people read it. We smile when we hear that folk from all over the globe are holding a copy of oh comely in their hands and devouring its pages.

The most common place to find a copy in the UK is WHSmith, where you should be able to get one at every branch, whether you’re wandering on the high street or waiting to catch a plane in an airport.

Unfortunately, from time to time, we’ve had readers contact us to say that an issue isn’t being stocked at their local WHSmith. We appreciate all our readers and want you to be able to get hold of a copy of the latest issue wherever you are. So, we’re asking for your help.

Next time you stop by a WHSmith, have a look to see if there’s an oh comely on the magazine shelves. It should be somewhere in the women’s or lifestyle sections. Then, please let us know if you found it by taking a minute to fill in this form. It'll be fun, we promise.

A very big thank you in advance from the oh comely team.

Photo: David B.

Holiday snaps are funny things. I discovered my great-grandmother's holiday slides not too long ago and managed to digitally scan them. But when we finally looked at her images, it was anyone's guess as to the city she travelled to and people she was with. Here's one from the series, and where she was no doubt inspired by the tartan dress code of the local fishermen. I guess the year to be about 1950, but I'm only going on her high-waisted wool skirt and black crepe hat that feature in some of the photos.

For issue five of oh comely, we'd like you to send us one of your holiday photos. It could be your own or one you've found, a picture from fifty years or five weeks ago. Tell us what you know about the picture. Even if that's very, very little! Where was it taken? Who's being photographed? Who's the photographer? What's the story behind the picture?

Send them to [email protected] by January 23. All files should be sent as high-res images.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Yes, yes, this is a little late for a New Year post. We've been busy dusting off our computers and posting piles of magazines that were ordered over the break.

But we don't think it's too late to get excited about 2011. Yesterday, we asked people on Twitter about their resolutions, and got a thought-provoking response from @KathrynSharman. 

She says on her blog, "I've never really been one for new year's resolutions. For me, they always seem to involve unrealistic dreams and/or punitive measures of denial or restraint, which is never a good way to start a year and is invariably doomed to failure."

Well, we can't help nodding in agreement to that. Instead, she advocates an ongoing 'life list', which breaks down her aspirations into do-able chunks for every day, week or month. They need to be "realistic, achievable and measurable".

That sounds very wise. Perhaps it's time to bin the resolutions and start a life list. We hope you have a realistic, achievable and measurable 2011. And a happy one too, of course.

A post on our independent stockists is long overdue, because they've all got interesting stories and are well worth supporting. So I thought a note on the new places you can buy oh comely couldn't go far wrong.

The magazine is now sold online at St. Leonards, a leather-goods store set up by designer K Avery. K is also the proud owner of a very distinguished rough-haired Slovakian dog called Oscar and she keeps a blog of their adventures here.

You can also find us at the Created Gallery in Chesterfield, which is so close to the Peak District that even the London snow hasn't stopped me daydreaming about summer walking trips. Created display handmade work by British designers and run courses on felt making and textile design.

Finally, the Here Gallery and Bookshop in Bristol is also stocking the magazine. They run a great programme of exhibitions and start the new year with a show on the British-Japanese artist Lydia Shirreff.

Oh comely has been around for almost nine months now (!) and we think it's time for a couple more people to join the team. We're looking for two people: someone to help with illustration and someone to help with features. The roles will take up several hours per week, on average.

Everyone in the team has had a strong impact on the feel of the magazine as a whole. So we'd like it to be the same with our new illustration and features assistants. You'll have the chance to make a difference to the direction of the magazine, and explore the things you find interesting.

Please note that these roles are not jobs and are unpaid. They're for people who'd like to do something different, either as a hobby or to gain experience in the magazine industry. Either way, we hope it'll be fun.