Just got back from Berlin with the lady and it was beautiful indeed. Managed to see the East Side Gallery, the DDR museum, and the Holocaust memorial. Had a beautiful apartment, and spent far too much time sat in the photoautomat by the station. We drank gin and lemon until the sun came up. All in all, a beautiful holiday
I recently got back from a trip to Ireland. I was mainly there to talk to some people about the IRA. I reckon my dissertation next year will probably be about how the media presented the IRA during the 70’s and 80’s. So I made the 8 hour journey to Ireland (how ridiculous), and went to go and see Shankill and the Falls Road in Belfast.
The Falls Road is the Catholic side, and Shankill is the Protestant side. Each has flags hung on every corner, so it’s easy to tell which is which. We thought the flags were left from the jubilee, but the Shankill side has them flying all year round. The Catholic’s have all their road names in Gaelic as well as English, just so you know, once again, it’s the Catholic side. There’s a fence, taller and longer than the Berlin wall that seperates the two sides and the gate - the only way to pass through the fence - is closed as soon as the sun disappears.
I didn’t realise the conflict between the two was still so bad. I’ll have more to write soon enough, but for now there’s a few pictures.
Smoking in London without freezing to death is something hard to come by these days, but this little gem has brought us an alternative.
Upon reaching the website for Olssons ‘Garlic and Shots’ you will be met with this lovely greeting:
“No dishes are served without garlic. You can always order extra garlic, but never less. As you leave the restaurant you should feel like you’ve been garlic marinated. This is our mission from god” A mission from god it may be, but I’m not sure how happy god would really be with this place.
Olssons “Garlic and Shots” is a lovely little bar in Soho. Located on Frith street, and it really does do exactly what it says on the tin- Garlic and shots. The bar has 101 different vodka based shots and their own signature shot is a take on a Bloody Mary, with garlic of course. As every dish is also served with garlic it’s a somewhat lethal place to be.
However, Garlic and Shots is really the last place you should think about going to eat at. You should not ruin your experience by being tempted by any garlic mushrooms or even the olives. This place is a heavy metal bar, with tattooed staff and rude managers. The attitude they give you is the attitude you can give back or deal with.
Downstairs you will find an almost dungeon like bar. There are tables to drink at and usually a few men in suits that don’t fit in. Feel free to shout abuse at them; they won’t hear you over the blaring heavy metal music. And don’t even try to order a drink upstairs, they’ll send you straight down.
The real gem at this place though is the smoking area. And what a beautiful smoking area it is. It’s all heaters and over-head cover, and as a smoker it makes me want to cackle just thinking about it.
There are few places left in London where you can comfortably sit down outside in wind, rain or snow and have a cigarette as you drink. But this, ladies and gentlemen is exactly that place. There is nothing particularly special about this dedicated area for smokers, apart from the fact that it is exists, and it definitely is dedicated.
A bottle of wine is reasonably priced here, so you can feel free to wallow in your miniature pint glass of wine and smoke the night away. Although there are some ridiculous people hanging around here, there really is a mix of people.
Here you will find the usual student tourist, lured in by the promise of 101 vodka-based shots, and the couple that complains about the service but was enticed by the mere promise of garlic. However, the real regulars lurk downstairs, lapping up the music and adding to the general vibe of the garlic and shots persona.
Although, I would not and could not endure the loud basement or any of the 101 vodka-based shots, apart from the Bloody Mary style special, the smoking garden is enough to entice me on any night.
Calling all smokers, this will be your favourite place to go, because no one is pushing you into the rain to suffer and moan, you can merely enjoy your favourite tipple and a comfortable puff on a cigarette.
April Fools day is a day like no other. Newspapers devise nasty tricks to play with your mind and the staff at any office see fit to devise some pretty horrendous jokes to play on their colleagues. We’ve managed to find the top April Fool’s jokes that have ended is some fairly horrific ways.
The Bomb
Last year a man in Newark planted a bomb in his mates car for April Fool’s day that was designed to explode when he started his car.
Funny right?
No is the answer. The worst bit about this god awful practical joke, is that his friend actually ended up dead. His excuse: “It was just a joke, how was I supposed to know that he would actually start his car? I mean, it’s Friday! He wasn’t supposed to die!”
Still, it’s difficult to say who is always on the losing end of a hearty, old April Fools joke when you hear about stuff like this:
The Legal Case
A manager at Hooters in Florida told his employees they would be winning a “Toyota” if they sold the most beer. The winning waitress was blindfolded and led to a car park. She was then presented with a “toy Yoda.” April Fools!! How hilariously funny! Unfortunately, the female employee did not think so. She took the case to court, accusing them of breach of contract and fraudulent misrepresentation. The amount she receieved from the case wasn’t revealed but her lawyer is claimed to have said she could now “pick out whatever type of Toyota she wants.” Jokes on you Hooters.
The Revenge
The master of all April Fools jokes gone wrong however has to be the very sorry couple simply after a pair of Kanye West tickets. The wife in this lively duo called into a radio station in order to “play a prank” on her husband and if it all went well she would win the two tickets for Kanye West. To cut a long story short she had to tell her own husband that he wasn’t the father of their child. How funny! What a great April fools day joke right? Things obviously got fairly ugly live on air, but things took a little turn for the worst when her husband told her if she wanted to be honest, he would also be honest and admitted that he had been shagging her sister for the past year. I’m not sure if they got their Kanye West tickets but I imagine he probably got some divorce papers sent to wherever he saw fit to hide in shame.
The Monster
Legend has it that Loch Ness is home to a large “monster”, better known to most as Nessie. On 1 April 1972, the headlines read that Nessie had been found. Yorkshire’s Flamingo Park Zoo, who had been searching for Nessie’s existence found the floating body in the water and placed it into their van to take it back to the zoo. The police soon began chasing them, citing a 1933 act of Parliament prohibiting the removal of “unidentified creatures” from Loch Ness — yes, the Scottish do have a law banning the removal of Nessie. However, this was not Nessie. It was a bull elephant seal from the South Atlantic. The education officer at the Flamingo park soon piped up and confessed to stealing the seal from Dudley zoo after it had died, shaving its whiskers off, padding its cheeks with stones and keeping it frozen for a week before he dumped it in the lake as a practical joke on his colleagues. Where the fuck did he store a ton and a half seal for a week is my question.
The Idiots
Newspapers are no stranger to a good old fashioned April fools joke; hitting their readers with adverts aimed at fooling the general public. Burger King joined the foolery crew when they took a full page advertisement is USA today claiming they had just introduced the new “left-hand wopper”. This was the same as your normal wopper but all condiments had been rotated 180 degrees for the 32 million left-handed Americans. Obviously they imagined people would know this was a prank, alas the Americans never fail to surprise, and had thousands of customers asking for left-handed burgers. The worst part is that customers then started requesting their own “right handed version.”
My favourite of all April fools jokes gone wrong is the tragic tale of Jar Jar Binx on the subway. What starts out as some ridiculous improv company trying to generally annoy and “fool” the passengers on the train turns sour when Jar Jar gets all up in one mans grill. Check out the video below. Not even Yoda was strong enough to defeat this man.
Katy Perry has recently been hitting every headline there is to hit, and quite rightly too. Mostly, it’s her ever-changing hair, weird outfits and obviously the big break-up. However, none of this has really led me to think too deeply about Miss Perry, but her latest muisc video for her song, part of me is a completely and utterly different story.
My favourite part of the video is not just her shouting “don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” at her ex at the beginning of the video, but the sign that inspires the rest of it. It reads – “All Women Are Created Equal, Then Some Join The Marines.” Really? I mean, that can’t be the answer to heartbreak can it?
For Perry it is, and for Perry it works. She takes to a dodgy toilet for a bit of a Britney moment — she cuts off all her hair, then she bandages up her boobs, checks them out in the mirror and then gets into some jeans and a hoodie, I guess to look more masculine. I’m afraid that’s as sexy as this video gets.
What we see next is her carrying a fellow marine on her shoulder, shouting, shooting a real live gun, climbing some ropes, stabbing a fake torso with a gun and surviving a very brutal splash of water.
There is a very magical moment, when her and what looks like her troop, are stood in the middle of some water. They are stood in perfect formation, gun in hand, and she is actually singing, whilst everyone around her stands in silence. Very bizarre. Anyway, the moral of this story is join the Marine’s if you have just been through a break-up. Ditch the cute little dresses for a gun and some camouflage.
The buzz that has surrounded this video has been equally as bizarre. Naomi Wolf’s response has been by far the most interesting, calling the video propaganda for the Marine Corps and asking everyone to boycott the singer. A fair argument seeing as the message of the video essentially calls for women to join the army to become superior – “All Women Are Created Equal, Then Some Join The Marines.”
On the other hand one critic said, “The makeup is gone and it’s as far from glamorous as it can get, but it pays homage to our troops and the scores of brave women who have joined up.” I beg to differ. Cut to the scene where she is being shouted at during boot camp, and I think you will find she is wearing a full face of make-up. There is definitely a shit load of eyeliner involved anyway.
Yes, the troops and the scores of brave women who have joined the Marine Corps should be celebrated for fighting America’s sometimes illogical battles but I’m just not sure Katy Perry should be part of it. She is a pop star, going through what must be a difficult time, and sees fit to show her strength through a 4.12 minute video of her pretending to be part of the army. If this begins to influence young people then I’m pretty sure it is propaganda. Maybe she should just stick to the stilettos and the candy coloured dresses. It suits her better.
Brixton has long been labeled as an ‘up and coming area’, but anyone who lives there is probably fully aware that the various strangers offering you drugs – “you can try first” – and the general abuse hurled at staff in McDonalds is something that makes Brixton, and it just isn’t going away.
Having said this, there is a part of Brixton that now lies close to my heart, and although over the years it has become a haven for certain ‘cool kids’ that just can’t be arsed to venture to East London, it’s still a great place to be. Venture down Coldharbour lane and you will find yourself at Brixton Village, formerly known as Granville Arcade.
Beside the fact that you really can get some brilliant food here for very modest prices, Brixton Village also has an air of calm about it. They may have their fair share of tourists now, but once you familiarize yourself with all the people that work here you soon realize that your waitress is your chef, your sales assistant is the owner of the shop and the ice-cream boy is the one that makes the ice-cream. These are small businesses, and they’re making their money for themselves. In general this is always a nicer atmosphere because you don’t have any miserable bastards behind tills, swearing under their breath about how shit the pay is.
One of my favourite places here is a little pizza shop called – The Agile Rabbit. You can get one of the best calzone’s you’ve ever eaten here, and if you fancy it, a glass of wine or a beer as well.
One of my favourite places here is a little pizza shop called – The Agile Rabbit. You can get one of the best calzone’s you’ve ever eaten here, and if you fancy it, a glass of wine or a beer as well. However, if you just haven’t got the cash, opposite this there’s a lovely little place that serves Mediterranean food. They’re not licensed so it’s a BYOB affair, and only £2 for corkage. There’s little choice here, but if you like lamb, halloumi and hummus this is your place. The wraps are gorgeous and I strongly recommend the mezze plate if you’re too hungry to just have a wrap. Elephant is fairly similar in it’s BYOB rules, but no corkage and it’s Pakistani street food. They do a brilliant thali, and the owners of the place are lovely. They’ll recommend stuff for you if you can’t make your mind up, but the vegetable thali is a winner.
If in need of Wi-Fi there is also a place here for you too. Brick Box wraps anything imaginable into a crepe for you and melts it all on a hot plate. You can have banana’s and cream or cheese and mushrooms. The selection is vast.
If you’re after something sweet, LAB G is your place. I have honestly never had better ice-cream in all of my life. Order the salted caramel gelato, and make it a large because you’ll want to stash the rest of it in your freezer.
You can also get all your meat, fish, fruit and veg from here without worrying that your giving anymore money to the bastards at Tesco. There are various little vintage shops, deli’s, a sweet shop and a lovely little flower shop. Generally you will enjoy this place if you like your food. There’s plenty to choose from, and generally good crowd, with live music in the evening.
Brixton Village is open Monday to Wednesday from 8am until 6pm, Thursday to Saturday from 8am until 10pm and Sundays until 5pm.
(Source: sabotagetimes.com)
I do not wish to criticise this ‘Drama’ presented to us all one evening a few days ago by the oh so lovely Channel 4. But this I do have to say.
If anyone has the courage to watch this, then just remember that you must block the gangster, middle aged, white, embarrasing, father of a genuinely nice kid out of your mind. Purely because at one point he is mid-conversation walking down towards Clapham Junction station and randomly high five’s a person in the street. Seriously, he high fives someone. Honestly. You don’t even know who the ‘high-five-ee’ is.
For me, ladies and gents, the illusion was ruined. We were no longer watching the London Riots unfold, we were watching something very far from it. Something very wrong.
Channel 4 have done it again. Provided us with a shocking documentary that is done in the most unimaginably, painful and most American way possible.
Yeah, it was an awful and terrible story and in no way do I condone any of it, but it just got a little bit unimaginative when all they could put on our screens were the conversations between two people that don’t know each other talking about a certain ‘snake.’
There will be much much more to follow on this documentary film but for now I’m just too tired to moan about everything that was wrong with it.
I’ve become print editor for this little beauty: www.artslondonnews.co.uk
I had to write my ‘editors letter’ today and get my photo taken for it. Here it is: http://www.artslondonnews.co.uk/20120302-henrietta-hitchcock
