bah

I just dont want to talk to any of my friends who went to this.

Herb and Dorothy

Just read about these two.

Now I want to 1) c more film
2) Make art
3) Buy more art.

your man in London

Just got accepted into the writing team of my favourite London information websites Londonist. This is also one of the only sites that I twitter, as it always has an interesting list of things to do or a run down on whats happening in this town. So it was with a lot of joy that I wrote my first post on William Blakes exhibition, which you can read here

You can also read someones helpful advice to me- but in my defence I didn't really want to write up a bio, and its really easy for me to gush on about Blake and even easier for me to randomly go off onto tangents. So its my first go buddy! give me a bone! hahaha.

cool hey?

noodle alert, buy them where you can.

As if fully aware of the satire they bring on themselves, England has sold out of Doner Kebab flavored noodles! They have had to take commercials off of tv channels.

I wonder if its the obvious Flight of the Conchord rip off that did it?

NZ Wine is first choice for England: Choice!

Just read in the Guardian today that sales of NZ Sauvignon Blanc has risen 370% this fortnight than sales last year. Ignoring the trends set by the credit crunch.

Handily at Majestic if you buy 2 bottles of more there is 20% off the listed price.

wind beneath my wings

Wingsuit loic jean albert and friends , Amazing flight... from Xmicky on Vimeo.

Jesus, sometimes you see something that you really really want to do. Here I sit at my desk typing and surfing, listening to metronomy and looking out the window, or watching tv. these guys can fly!

why dont you stand.

Playing For Change | Song Around The World "Stand By Me" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

These guys took one Ben e King tune to street performers all around the world, and made their venue a studio, mixing their voices together. Its pretty excellent.

Brick Lane on the sunniest Sunday ever

Brick Lane, the curry isnt as nice or as cheap as Tooting but on a Sunday in April, with the heat beating down and the streets crowded with smiley people, its a good place to hang. We took J and B down for their first time, and although we didnt get a salt beef bagel because of the queue, it was still a worth while trip.



It reminds me that I have 2 days to realise my SoFoBoMo project that after 5 misfires I may have decided on "the art of selling in a recession". If you havent heard me dribble on about this before, the idea of SoFoBoMo is to create a photobook containing 35 photos in 31 days. The theme is completely up to you, but of course thats half the battle to try and get a satisfactory one that is interesting enough not just for you to want to take photos, but for others to actually read.

Tonight is Manchester United v Arsenal for the Champions League. I am heading down to the Junction to watch it with low expectations and high hopes...

Weekend Photos; wires N7, old clothes and new bells

Friday night, just before I headed home, I nipped into an office space that I heard a lot of banging happening earlier in the day. Just to check it out. There lay a huge collection of wires and plugs. Like the innards of some beast the life line of the modern office.

On Saturday we went for a walk in the sunshine, I saw a colourful door that leads to a Columbian restaurant;



An optomistic child looking forward to the FA Cup semi final with Chelsea, and a man with a moustache;

Then we went and looked at a second hand clothes store L. likes- i got bored and started taking photos;






Then on Sunday we went to Epping Forest with a few friends, it turned into a miniphotoclub. The idea was to go and find a carpet of bluebells. Apparently we should go next week. I did find a bunch though, right next to a rubbish bin in a carpark.



We even used the compass!

These are the native English bluebells. You can tell by its bent stem, with each bell on one side of the stem. The more aggresive Spanish blue bell has a stronger stem, and the bells fall on all sides of it.

Spring breaks through

This weekend I got over Arsenal losing in the FA cup by eating L.'s Portugese Custard Tarts.

L. uses a vodka bottle as a rolling pin. I made some bloody marys with this blackcurrant vodka, but i do not recommend it.



Yummo!

Easter Plans in London

Easter, Easter and what to do? Chocolate and hot cross buns? church and finishing Lent? No red meat? Passover? Or just enjoying some well earned time off!

I think if you are in London, the number one plan is just dont listen to any weather reports, and have plans flexible enough to swap between a sunny and rainy list. But in case you dont have your list ready, or maybe some holes in their somewhere, have a check of mine...

Friday there are some organised fancy Kites flying on Hampstead Heath and while you are up there, check out this pub. It is where Ruth Ellis shot her boyfriend dead, and the bullets are still embedded in the wall. This may be a lie, but the bullet holes are still there. It also has a four pint rating from fancy a pint, which means one must try it.

If you wanted to combine art and musicm then head to the southbank for free perfomances of Ujino and the Rotators. He calls them sound scupltures, which sounds cool! This is on Friday and Saturday.

Then for Sunday, the Lock Tavern has some cool djs and calls it Sensible Sundays!

Or maybe you want to spend your way out of this so call recession, and take advantage of all the amazing art out there?

For a Full list of Easter Egg hunts

OK, the rest of my list is sectioned up so just have a browse.

Photo Ops

Aren't birds brilliant? Regent Park has daily tours of the bird life that hang out in the gorgeous gardens, especially the Herons that rest in their ponds. Herons walk really slow, but fly really fast.

Walking club offers a wide range of walks this weekend.

Football on Hackney Marshes http://www.hackneyandleytonfootballleague.co.uk/

Bricklane bike polo Every Sunday 1pm, corner of Brick Lane & Shacklewell

Spring at Kew think bright spring bulbs, and avoiding the children hanging out by the farm exhibition.

harness horse parade (?)

The "why would I ever go south of the river" walk


Things I havent done yet and it could be a chance through the weekend

Treasures of the black death!

Little Italy at the Islington Museum

Shunt

Geffrye Museum

Markets

North African and Arabic foods
slow food market (and easter egg hunt on Sunday)
Wierd farm market


Gigs

Friday and Saturday at the Buffalo Bar includes the usually awesome twee as fuck

Friday at the Camden Barfly(can be on the guest list for Arrows for Love so let me know

Monday at Rough Trade

Full List of all the big gigs in the city

Grindago go will be good in Bethnal Green
Sleepy Sun (with Fuck Buttons DJing) Sunday should be pretty cool as well.

Film

And God Created Woman 11th and 12th
The 400 Blows various times
Nighthawks Various
Stop Making Sense 9th and 12th
I for India Five pound Mondays!
Tony Manero Five pound Mondays!
Point Break and Top Gun double bill
Let the right one in starts on the 10th.

Lets not forget that the Arsenal play wigan away this weekend, so keep your ear to the radio!

Happy Easter everyone! Cheers Jesus for all the chocolate. Now lets dance.

Friday Fry Day

I sit in my empty office early Friday morning, and I can hear bird song coming in through the windows. I would say the sweet sounds of the thrush but I have no idea what they are. Not pigeons, magpies or starlings. But I just read about a photography competition held by TFL.
Here the London underground is encouraging commuters to take photos of birds within a five minute walk of a tube station. Hey, it’s something to keep in mind right? The competition finishes on the 31st of May.

In other news, today in history the ice cream Sunday was invented, using of all flavours in this fair planet- Cherry? Quite an interesting story in the end. I love ice cream sundaes, and ice cream sodas.

Its another lovely day in London!

April May in Film (London)-

So as I said in the last post, more cinema is the order of the day. I am still training on the Hitchcock films (so far we have watched sabatuer, shadow of a doubt and rope) but no matter how comfy the couch, dvd's are not the same as cinema.

Here is my outlook for the next two months.
BFI
April 9th Stop Making Sense
April 11th And God Created Woman
21st April Special Mention! Cool Hand Luke with a discussion with George Kennedy
37th April Breathless

Prince Charles Theatre Monday Double Bills!
April 13th Point Break Top Gun Double Bill
April 20th Highlander Mad Max 2 Double Bill
April 27th Little Shop of Horrors, Rocky Horror Double Bill
April 28th Special Mention! Seven Samurai!
May 11th Wierd Science, Ferris Bueller double bill

ICA £5 Tickets on Mondays!
April 3rd-9th Tokyo Sonata
April 10th-30th Tony Manero April 10th Q&A With the main actor
April 10th, 11th & 18th Kandahar
April 10-13th I for India

Sci Fi Film Festival
30th April Special Mention Hardware with conversation with 2000AD legend Kevin O'Neil
3rd May Anime All Nighter!
2nd May Star Trek All Nighter!

More updates to come, but when you start looking into it, London has an awful lot of films showing at any given time.

Birthday Blog

I hit 34 on Monday and had a great time doing it. L. made me eggy crumpets with bacon and maple syrup oh yeah, she also bought me cool shoes, a party cd and the excellent Joker graphic novel. B bought me a great t shirt, R some delicious wine, got phone calls from the family and then out and about in London.

Went to the bar in the Hilton on the 28th floor, with amazing views and delicious wines...



Then China Tang, which was amazing! Now, I did want to jump on my soap box a little bit here. London has some great places to eat and drink, and it has some mediocre places to eat and drink. I bought a bog standard pint of peroni last week for £4.05! They had burgers on the menu for a tenner. China Tang offers a set lunch at £15 pounds, which was a basket of dim sum, some noodles with meat and a glass of wine. Sorry there are no photos but this was a delicous lunch a large glass of wine and a fantastic ambiance. All I am saying is be careful with your pound. Don't settle for flat beer when it is expensive to buy.




Anyhow, we then caught a double decker bus over to the BFI had some more wine, there was a gay/lesbian festival on so everything was booked out, but I bought two tickets to Stop Making Sense, the talking heads film. Then we bought some cream charges headed home to drop some stuff off and went to the cinema to see the Watchmen for the second time. It is still a great film on the second viewing and I am pleased I got to see it again on the big screen before it finished its ciruclation.

I want to watch more cinema, and I think it was a resolution earlier in the year. But watch this space!

ideal day out in London

So its counting down to my birthday, and I need to get myself a plan or else I could just sit on the couch playing video games all day… wait a minute…

No- I plan to do my ideal day out in London. It amazes me I haven’t thought of this before as a topic.
OK, so it means on Sunday night I am not drinking, so I don’t wake up with a hangover, and that means that 08:00 on a Monday morning is a sleep in!

Breakfast at the breakfast club. This place looks cool! A see a long drawn out breakfast with coffee and sun streaming through the window to halo our waitress who is bringing us bottomless coffee.

Now I will make my way via some record stores and a walk around soho- hyde park, its time for Lunch!

this place looks mean! And we will get some bloody mary cocktails (which will be the start of my newly revamped bloody mary blog). So because there are not so many people going out places like these are doing excellent priced lunch. More on this in the following blog.

Then a walk around to the south bank to either the Tate, and/or the BFI

And at the risk of doing too much on the day, here are some other things I want to do
Caledonian Canal Walk
Blues Jam
Lounge lover

And that’s it, another year beginning!

other people born on this day
VVG


Paul Verlaine
High-heels were struggling with a full-length dress
So that, between the wind and the terrain,
At times a shining stocking would be seen,
And gone too soon. We liked that foolishness.

found a photo

On a woodshed in East London.

Latest Bloody Mary Recipie

I heart the bloody mary. I plan to kick start the old blog into it as well, but I have discovered that there are only two ways to get a good bloody mary in this town; pay enough money for the bar tender to be proficient and if this is going to be a blog I really can only pay for two drinks a month... or make it yourself.
This recipe is per glass and this is the order each ingredient goes in;
two ice cubes
enough cucumber vodka to cover the ice
One shot of port
half a lid of brandy
two pinches of celery salt
juice from half a lime
6 drops of tobasco sauce
a dash of worcestor
the best fresh tomato juice you can find, although if you have time make it yourself! I have only done this once, and to be honest it tasted a lot like tomato soup. I will let you know next time I do it...
Stir well
garnish with celery and a sprinkle of pepper.

If I had some fresh horseradish I would use this, but alas I did not.

Great Comedy Moments

Last week in Photos

Hello! Had a nice week last week all in all. Good football results for everyone! as long as they are gooners haha. and Liverpool fans it must be said.

L. K. and I went to Hackney Marshes for a bike ride in the fantastic London weather. Here is the speed demon L. in action!

These are some much slower bikers in the park we stopped for a beer.This Banksy hit all the blogs last week as the stencilled one hit Hackney. Conversely it was "defaced" by some graffitti hoolagan, and so someone has come back, cleaned off the unsitely graffitti so Hackney can still have some art. Ooh the irony.

Before going to the movies last week L and I stopped in for a drink at 5th View. The tables were seperated by books to brouse, the table service was slow but friendly and they had a wide range of world beers. Considering the madness downstairs at Piccadilly Circus it was very calm and refreshing!

At Rough trade records I found this Lost poster. I am always intrigued and slightly saddedned by these. But I snapped away like an emotion tourist. If you have seen Jack let him know he is loved! Maybe give him one of these.

This is the bus restaurant in Brick Lane. I miss the old routemasters. Jumping on was always cool! And how you could pretend to be asleep for a free ride. Oh well.

Spittlefields, why have I never walked through here at night before?

I just joined up with my local library. Isnt it amazingly romantic in an old fasioned way. Things wont be like this for much longer.

words? WTF?!

After turning this blog into a bit of a photo journal, I thought I would take a step back from the vision, and revert to words backed up with links.

Taking photos is becoming an obsession, one that started over 25 years ago when I first began buying secondhand old cameras, taking them apart and making periscopes with the mirrors. L. bought me this book last night which has step by step lessons around your camera, which is reinforced by a series of projects at the end of each chapter. Good fun!

For a more hands on experience I found this in the Tate: Whats on April-May booklet. The Shoot Experience organise treasure hunts, workshops but the idea that caught my idea as the Tate shoot.

Teams are given different parts of a story and sent into the local streets to
find inspirations and take photos that respond to or represent each phrase or
word. At the end of the day all photos are collected and compiled to make an
unique photographic story board that will be projected onto the big screen in
the Turbine Hall.

You need groups of 4 and its 50 quid each group to enter. How about it?

St Patrick’s day this weekend. Trafalgar Square should turn green, but in light of the recent military clashes Boris is hoping to dedicate the festivities to Peace. With a parade and a festival I certainly hope this ends up being a very peaceful and festive day.

I however shall miss all of this and go for a walk along the Thames Path.