Ringing the Changes

Washing down the Front of the Tate, originally uploaded by turoasaur.

Its a sad day as the art is washed away, to swirl into storm drains, filtered down to be one day drunk by someone... hmmm not too bad I suppose!

Wash em down!

all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine

OK so its Jewellery time! Having just returned from Murano I am amped to make things. Oh here is an ace shop that I got my mum a necklace from, and thought you might like to have a look as well...

But I have just received 50 microscope slides, that I intend to make into brooches. I still need a few items (solder iron, clamp, pictures!) but the slides themselves are a step in the right direction. Looking on the net everyone uses stained glass foiled tape to hold the two slides together before you solder- but where am I meant to get that from? Obviously the "misc..." shops in seven sisters road will probably hold them! I am hoping they have solder irons!!

Rhyming slang learn during the weekend: Bag= bag of sand- Grand. £1000.

I am still looking for somewhere with a kiln to let me make glass bricks!

John Soames Rocks!

cleptomaniac, originally uploaded by gfitz36.

So ma has arrived, we have crossed off a few things from the list, old hallows, tate, trafelgar square, jewell tower, westminster abbey etc. But it was John Soames Museum that really blew my mind, so great to walk around the house to see what those fancy houses look like inside, and then the sheer volume of his collection is overwhelming. But for me the jewel is the collection of the hogarth "A rakes progress".
oh and the sweet t towel for a fiver. watch out people xmas presents coming yr way!


Havent seen Bex yet, but you know itsgoing to happen

Blogs around the world

Loving Blogs around the world at the moment, the puddlelicious crew has grown today. if you feel like reaching around this dark internet for a spark of inspiration, check some out now!_ oh wait, read me first- read me first-/oo\

Anyhoo.
I have been thinking. Lots of things really, and I know I dont usually rant here but do you know what? Posts have been pretty thin on the ground, and if I expect people to read me (I dont actually but you know what I mean) then I have to write something.


Now, like a lot of people, I want to get me an iphone. this is mainly because of the maps function, I just get a kick out of seeing -electronically- where i am- which would probably be a pub, and I could look out the window, but I will be showing everyone where we are on the phone... (I know how lucky my friends are!)... So you can then choose to see the restaurants around you- but (obviously) only the ones that have signed up and become iphone ap. 101 savy. Which is ok at the moment, but as the money begins to come in for this, it will soon only be the places that are chosen to be sponsored by which ever app it is.
Which brings me to my point. We are living in the wild west of the internet, but the later stages of the pioneering spirit. Very soon, our choices of what we want to view- or what we can view, will be limited by our providers in much the same way. I actually think that we will have to pay for the sort of things that we now just bump into, like peoples blogs- or user generated content. so a nominal fee for the huge products- but a larger fee for wanting to view content made from independant users.

the end, in short is nigh.

On the upside, I have sunburnt shoulders for the first time all year. Its September people!

This week sees the return of Bex- and the intial arrival of my mother!

and its a short week.

London in a List

Following my brothers advice I have made the following list of things to do in London with my mother. Note the hand to tick off tick boxes.

September Events
A list of events
Open Days
Jane Austen Festival
Thames Festival
Tattoo Convention

OCT Events
1066 Festival

Stores of Interest
 hampstead shop
cheese shop
 Cheese Shop
 http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/Vinopolis.aspx
 Covent Garden Cask Whisky Shop
 Vintage store

Historical Buildings
 Awesome old church
 Globe theatre
 Tower of http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/admissionsprices/toweroflondonadmission.aspx
Old Bailey http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/
 Westminster Abbey
 Dr Johnsons house
 Oldest Church fabric in London
 Old Jewish House

Sunday 7 September: 12 noon - 5pm
Sunday 14 September: 12 noon - 5pm
for the Brick Lane Festival
Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 September: 10am - 6pm

Museums and Galleries
 Clock making museum
 Egypt museum
 Toy Museum
 Foundling Museum
 weird silent museum
 National History Museum
 Museum of London
 John Sloane museum
 Tate Modern and Britain
 National Gallery
 operating theatre
 Charles Dickens Museum
 Keats House
Markets
 Broadway market
 Camden Market
 Portobello Road Market
 Spitalfields Market
 Borough Market
 Greenwich Market
 Leadenhall Market
 Columbian Road Flower Market

Places of Interest
 Arsenal stadium
 Chelsea Physic Garden
 Kew Gardens
 walks
 singalonga sound of music/ rocky horror
 lochs by boat


Food of interest
 salt beef bagel from Curtain Road or Brick Lane
 Indian food from Tooting
 Chinese
 Steak from either broadway market or Gaucho Grill
 French Restaurant
 Turkish from Hackney, Green Lanes or Gallipoli
 Thai from Isarn












Pubs and Drinking
learn how to make a martini £18 http://www.christophersgrill.com/news.html
Old Gin Bars
In Soho, the Argyll Arms (18 Argyll Street, W1; 020 7734 6117) boasts Victorian etched mirrors, snob screens and mahogany; the original layout is intact too – a corridor leads to the large back saloon past three small snug bars. For knockout Victoriana, the Albert (52 Victoria Street, SW1; 020 7222 5577) is a fabulous confection of hand-cut glass, carved dark wood and old gaslight fittings, built in the 1860s to honour the empress’s departed prince.
The City is where many old-timers of the London pub world are still standing. For example, the Viaduct Tavern (126 Newgate Street, EC1; 020 7600 1863), an 1869 pub, is just across the road from the Old Bailey. Up in north London is the Island Queen (87 Noel Road, N1; 020 7704 7631). Swathed in wood and etched glass, it celebrates nautical glory with a wave-damaged wooden figurehead, palm leaves and prints of ships; a vast island bar presides over the middle of the lofty single room.
Best of the lot, though, is the Prince Alfred (5a Formosa Street, W9; 020 7286 3287). The beautiful old tiling and exquisitely curved frosted glass frontage barely prepare you for the architectural delights within: a complex series of snugs with a fabulously ornate half-moon dark-wood bar as centrepiece. The snugs (free to hire!) once kept the proles apart from the toffs, and stand now as fascinating testimony to the British class system.
On Carting Lane, a gloomy side street off the Strand between the Savoy and the ShellMex building, you can find London’s last remaining sewer-powered gas lamp, still giving out its queasy yellow glow around the clock, thanks to a hollow iron column that allows sewer vapours to travel to its flame. Lit by the capital’s slurry since the 1880s, this Patent Sewer Ventilating Lamp represents Victorian ingenuity at its best.

Bar Polski (11 Little Turnstile, WC1; 020 7831 9679)
N1 real ale casks
Charles Lamb
Tequila Club



Day Trips from London Ideas
Brighton
Cambridge
Oxford
Stonehenge
Avesbury
St Albans
Leeds Castle
Arundel Castle

just bear it in mind

status report

We have a vegetarian mouse! he only likes to dig in our little (inside) garden and nibble on our baby tomato plant! He ignored the chocolate or other goodies around, and digs a small maze below the ground. I think its cute. I am also going to use it to kill him, my plan is to put some peanut butter and tomato plant on a mousetrap hidden in a paper bag and slightly submerged with the mouth of the bag opened invitingly.

Then in the morning I can pick up the bag with the poor little mousey inside and throw him in the rubbish with no ceremony.

A state of war has been declared.

dumpr.net

Museum by dumpr.net

Shock! Half past July and still no entry?

Rain and Crowd, originally uploaded by turoasaur.

I joined up to Expat today (check them out by clicking the logo on the left).

Now although I am loathe to use the term expat or O.E but this site is fantastic for the casual blog stalker. Its USP is you can ask questions of the blogger about the places you may want to move to or visit etc. I think this is awesome!

Anyway, mid July what have I done? This photo is at Wimbledon Tennis ground on the mens final. as these menacing clouds took over the skies, the crowd ran in almost manic fashion! it was quite amusing. I like the drama of those black clouds!

only in Dubai

Not that I have been there, but now I really want to go!! Oh yeah!

check out this vid of a design to use a sky scraper to generate electricity, and look as trippy as you like!

New Tate Membership

I belong!, originally uploaded by turoasaur.

L has graciously renewed my Tate membership! Woohoo! The upcoming year sees Francis Bacon, Rothco, Echakhch and many more.

Score!

Life in the Kitchen

DSC_0004, originally uploaded by turoasaur.

we are begining to grow our own food, and finally being like Tom and Barbara.

When I say we, my role is obviously minimal, consisting of comunication with the plants, to ensure a healthy mind set before I eat them. L takes care of most of the rest.

I think they are lettuce?

you have to heart where you live

London rocks. I mean if you are floundering around for something to blog about (AND LETS FACE IT- Telling you about my dinner is not going to get me an audience!) then all you have to do is grab your camera and hit the streets on any given evening. I suppose you have to be in the mood for it, but I went out last night with the lovely L. and everything was blog tastic.

We went to the Cy Twombly exhibition at the Tate Modern last night. We walked over, and then under Blackfriars Bridge and I noticed this frightening sign.


Defo bloggable, think about it for a second... why do you need a licence?
anyway, This is our first time to the tate since all of the art has appreared outside the gallery...


We hit the bar as soon as we got there, a nice bottle of wine and we even had a seat on the river side, which is usually packed.





The exhibition was quite something. The first few rooms I felt assaulted! It was like the vicous slashings of a maniac, the scribbles, the thick pastings of oil, the plaster of paris sculptings, really did not agree with me. I was getting more and more anxious, I felt myself being wound up tighter and tighter with every painting. thankfully, the curators calmed you down with room 3, which was two huge complimenting canvases. I really enjoyed the last two rooms, the penultimate was emerald greens smeered over cream painted wooden boards. I found it looked very Japense, like a bush covered river. And the last room was the famous shots that are on the literature for this exhibition.

Then we walked down the embankment, found a strange garden dedicated to NZ plants! There even was Pohutakawa trees! And this (not native but popular in NZ) Plant; the red hot poker.To give its scientific genus name.


And as we were kicked out of this park for drinking, we sat in the Trafalgar Square, which I think is one of the strangly romantic spots in the city. I took these two photos that I really like.

This fountain was apparently built to stop crowds gathering in too concentrated numbers when protesting, as some of the biggest English protests took place here.




and this is just a photo I liked.

A Ducks Life

Early Sunday morning we levered ourselves out of bed, jumped on the bikes and made our way to Hampstead Heath with strawberries and yogurt in our stomachs. In the space between the clouds, the sun shone through. Though it was fleeting it warmed instantly.
Hampstead Lido is a lovely pool, 50 metres, (*which is large when trying lengths!)
Its cold though! 18 degrees, man oh man, took me a while to get in. And there were two ducks in the middle! just bobbing along, people still swimming, and the ducks just shuffling in their wake. Madness. Can you spot the duck in this photo?

Does anyone really care what I am having for dinner?

Come on London, its mid June for crying out loud. stop fucking rainging!
well its threating quite wildly out there now, with earthquake looking clouds awaiting. Although with Wimbledon just around the corner, we all should know better.

Anyway back to my dinner. Last night L. invented a completly new salad involving crazy beans, smoked fish and olives, so its my turn to invent something tasty and healthy. I am going to make chicken w/ tomatoes, asparagus and rosemary in little tinfoil parcels. should/could be nice. if you really want I will put photos in tomorrow haha.






ok, an hour to go til the football, and it looks like rain.

Ian Seigal hits the 100 club.

Hung over again! I plan not to go out tonight- "but its Friday>?!" I hear you say!! well shut up you, you're the last one I need to hear from, its people like you that make me wind up holding my head against pillows.

But last night was fun! woohoo! Out in one of the only sunny afternoons London has had for a while. Had a few beers on the bus (its illegal you know- as of the first of June- what-ever) the 94 from Shepherds Bush to Oxford Street. Then shoe horned myself through the human sausage maker that is Oxford Street. Grabbed a couple more beers and sent myself and A. to Soho Square. As is usual that place was packed. Its impossible for two men not to look gay in that square. Then off to the famous 100 Club. Looking at all the photos on the wall, its obvious how important this place is to the musical heritage of London. Its such a gem of history.

I was there for Ian Seigal. I love his dancing and snake boots.



Here is an addictive number countdown cut with a lot of patience from films.

ministry

Live at the Forum, 27/5/8. Was a good gig, dispite the first set from the newest three albums, and I didnt even know it was them playing!
then the first encore was hits, NWO, Breathe, just one fix, Thieves and So What, which is below. I mean it was awesome! Then we left but the next encore they played covers including the doors, ZZ Top and what a wonderful world.

a muggy london day- where is summer?

This week is lagging even though its a day shorter! where is the justice?

I have found new blogs of note today and have entered them over there in the land of blogs and other sites you should visit before you die.

In other news I am reading Michael Chabon's "Kavalier & Clay", and although not yet a third of the way in, I am very excited with it. Being the third MC Book I have read this year (!) I am a fan! READ HIM! And of course the cover art is excellent in this new =WARNING SHAMELESS PLUG WITHIN= format by HarperCollins.

Long weekend!

woohoo! not that I have had such a long week this week!
Minehead was awesome, just the best time, watching bands, hanging out at the chalet, waterslides, more bands. pretty cool.

Highlights were ghostface killer and silver jews. good fun.

I burnt my mouth so took a couple of days off getting better, and here i am on a Friday before bank holiday haha.

I am off to the Ministry gig on Tuesday. Thats going to Rock!

I will put some pix and videos up when we add them to you tube. the ones on at the moment have awful sound quality!

out

off to the parties tomorrow

ALL Tomorrows Parties.

Minehead. Tomorrow. Party. Tomorrow. Minehead.

How exciting is it going to be? pretty damn exciting.
The gig starts and ends really really well. Constantines first and ends with Envy.

Soon enough- great song, the video is obviously fan made but I like it.


and to end, Japanese hardcore band Envy


and heres some of those crazy NZers...