Brian Paddick vows: "I will be a less funny Mayor than Boris Johnson." Expect the votes to flood in.

“The capital needs a Mayor who understands that these deep-seated issues cannot be resolved by funny one-liners or waving a broom in the air…”

So, he admits to finding Mayor Johnson funny. That’s interesting to know.

The rest of Paddick’s piece for Politics Home goes big on policing, as you’d expect. He also pushes his early bird tube discount and 1 hour bus fare. Both of which are ideas which deserve a good airing in this campaign.

Apart from the first couple of paragraphs when he gets weirdly fixated on the concept of “the Earth”, as if he’s running for some sort of interplanetary mayoralty, it’s a sober and sensible offering which will be read by few and influence fewer. Paddick’s pitch is competence. But people hate competence! Nothing is more boring than a job well done. If he wants to be Mayor, he needs to understand that playing to the gallery is all part of the job.

Brian Paddick at Politics Home – We need a serious mayor for serious problems

The five sexiest men in the Tate Britain gallery

The best-looking hunks one of London’s favourite art galleries has to offer.

In reverse order.

5. Torso of The Rock Drill, by Jacob Epstein.

The torso only, rather than the whole body, is in Tate Britain. But this image, the best copyright-free one I could muster, should give you a general idea. Who doesn’t secretly desire to be cradled in the arms of a implacable metal machine? It’s the future of all our sex lives, we may as well embrace it now.

4. Captain Thomas Lee, by Marcus Gheeraerts.

His right wrist says “I will boss you about, I won’t take any shit, I’ll protect you and control you and you will love me for it.” His left wrist says “Let’s spend the afternoon making cupcakes!” The complete man.

3. Claudio, from Claudio and Isabella by William Holman Hunt.

Something quite James Franco about this moody hipster.

2. Iron worker (centre), from An Iron Forge by Joseph Wright of Derby.

Those arms. Just look at those enormous arms!

1. An athlete wrestling with a python, by Frederic Leighton.

I can’t think what precisely it is about this sculpture of a well-toned naked man wrestling a massive snake which I find sexually suggestive, but there’s definitely something there. I can assure you that, viewed in person, his buttocks are also unfeasibly taut. So it’s well worth a visit to the Tate to appreciate the full effect.

All images are public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

A sexy women post will inevitably follow.

Best and worst of the New York Times Magazine's London special

The NYT Magazine came to London for a special issue, which I think means that as a city we are officially at the tipping point between “hot right now” and “so over”.

The highlight is China Miéville’s fine state of the city essay, which covers a lot of ground including cuts, the Olympics, riots, strikes, parakeets, housing and racism. His best lines:

On Mayor Johnson: “a ninja of bumptiousness, a man with a genius for working rooms full of the easily pleased.”

On Canary Wharf: “every day a thuggish and hideous middle-finger-flipped glass-and-steel at the poor of the East End, every night a Moloch’s urinal dripping sallow light on the Isle of Dogs.”

On the economy: “People are fighting to stand still, whatever line of work they’re in.”

On parakeets’ shit: “Guano devastation. Limey spatters ruin the winter vegetation like the aftermath of some epochal paintball war.”

And his worst:

On the ArcelorMittal Orbit: “…A vast sculpture of knotting girders like a snarled Gaian hernia”.

A Gaian hernia. Come off it!

On loud music on public transport: “Tinny music raises disproportionate ire…Who cares? You’re getting off in five minutes, he’s 14 and trying it on a bit and boisterous to fill the city with music.”

Defending the indefensible

Elsewhere in the magazine there is a slideshow of pictures of children and drunks, an extraordinary slideshow of 1950s newlyweds kissing, some art I don’t really like made out of tourist postcards, and a piece arguing that London’s financial sector is better than New York’s because it’s so wonderfully unregulated.

The overall impression of London that educated America is going to get this Sunday when they flip open the magazine:

No sunlight. Good theatre. People a bit moany.

Careful now by Doldrums/Army Girls

Doldrums is former Spiral Beach frontman, Airick Woodhead, mate of arty/eerie pop queen of the moment Grimes. He scored a coup recently when his cover of Portishead’s Chase the Tear featured on the b-side of said single’s vinyl release. Today’s MPFree was originally released on a mixtape early last year. However, it’s been doing the blog rounds this weekend so we though we’d bring it to your attention. Produced by Doldrums, the vocalist is, we think, Carmen Elle of Toronto’s Army Girls. Doldrums has just released a free EP entitled Empire Sound, available to download here.

Web of Deceit - How the internet killed the celebrity death hoax

I was travelling in Peru when the news broke, enjoying myself at a beachside bar. All of a sudden the music stopped and over the microphone a sombre-toned barmaid announced the sad news of George Michael’s passing. A respectful minute or so of silence passed and then the sound system started up, screeching Michael Jackson’s Bad. After a further minute or so the music cut out again and said barmaid returned to the microphone to clarify the “sad news of Michael Jackson’s passing”.  We stared at each other blankly, unsure what was going on, until an Australian friend asked with genuine concern “how is George Michael?

He was fine of course, unlike poor Jacko, but for the first time in my life I found myself worrying about the former Wham singer’s well being. I hoped for instance he was finally getting the upper hand in his battle with cannabis addiction. A year later when he ploughed his car into the Snappy Snaps in Hampstead, I felt a palpable relief that he escaped the crash unscathed. The premonitory effect the mishap had on me brought to mind the celebrity death hoaxes of my schooldays. I recall one such playground rumour that Derrick Errol Evans, better known as Mr Motivator, had expired. The details are a bit sketchy, perhaps that throbbing vein in his head and finally given him the aneurism it had always threatened. Or maybe a naked flame had come into contact with his Lycra spandex. Either way, for the remainder of the day I was certain that sometime between first break and lunch we’d lost a giant of the televised workout world.

The Art of Lying

As morally dubious a practice as spreading these rumours was, it’s hard not to admire the artistry and effort which went into them. First of all the inventor had to pick a celebrity big enough that everybody knew who they were, but not so big that it would seem far-fetched and unbefitting of their stature for them to die on a school day. Then, because this was the pre-internet halcyon age, the rumour had to be started by actually telling somebody face-to-face. Granted that somebody was more often than not a wide-eyed and gullible 10 year-old, but even so you had to be prepared for even the most rudimentary interrogation. How did they die for instance? When? How do you know?

But it’s not like that anymore. A recent online Eddie Murphy death hoax started on the site Global Associated News gained so much momentum that his brother Charles was forced to respond – “It’s really astounding how low people will go for attention. Eddie Murphy is fine!” And this was despite the fact that the website contains the quite unambiguous disclaimer that: “This story is 100% fake! This is an entertainment website, and this is a totally fake article based on zero truth and is a complete work of fiction for entertainment purposes”.

Mind you, at least a fatal Swiss snowboarding accident involving the star of Beverley Hills cop is possible, if not exactly plausible. Last week, the comedian Michael Legge started a rumour, (I believe twitterstorm is now the preferred term), that fictional character Gregg Jevin had died – proving you don’t even have to exist for rumours of your demise to be greatly exaggerated. Type the word “is” into Google and the search engine prompts you to ask “Is David Guetta dead?” proving both the staying power of internet pranks and the stupidity of people who believe them.

Gotcha!

The virtual playground that is the internet has made killing off the stars easier than ever before. As the famous 71 character tweet goes ‘a lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on’. But the spate of celebicide that has seen Charlie Sheen, Owen Wilson and Adam Sandler go to that great rehab centre in the sky is much less believable than the pranks of yesteryear, especially since they were all said to have died in Swiss snowboarding accidents. Such is the lack of imagination in modern hoaxes they have left me mourning the loss of an art form rather than any celebrity. But maybe I’m just nostalgic for a simpler time, when people remember where they were when they first heard the news of Noel Edmonds’ tragic helicopter crash.  

Iain Sinclair says that East London's wasteland has been ruined by the Olympics

Source: BBC

London agenda for Wednesday 29 February

1. Watch the 1984 Alex Cox film Repo Man at the ICA. Getting there early means cake and cocktails. [ Le Cool]

2. Enjoy the history of typography [Run Riot]

3. Listen to classical music ‘dragged in to 21st Century Shoreditch’ by the City of London Sinfonia [Flavorpill]

4. Get a midweek dose of drum and base with Fabio, Bryan G , and Tenda at Swerve [Don’t Panic]

5. Watch the funny chap from the insurance ads on the telly, Chris Addison [Time Out]

6. Watch an illustrated talk on ‘Why Nothing Matters’ by Ronald Green [Ian Visits]

7. Find the Leaping Hare of Broadgate Circle [Tired of London]

BlackJamRedPansy

An ungainly name hides a wonderful sound. BlackJamRedPansy is the solo project of a Norwich based solo artist Jack Spelman, a Soundcloud discovery about which nothing more is online – but all the bleeps and blops, choppy piano, soaring strings, samples aplenty, blotted reverb and curious micro-melodies were more than enough to prick up our ears. Watch this space for more.

Video of London Olympics leaked

The Mirror has found a treasure trove of colour images from the 1948 Olympics.

Hook You Up by Sylver Tongue

We wish we could tell you more about the Purple Rain/Grace Jones/Sci-Fi obsessed Sylver Tongue. Alas, information has been less than forthcoming. Sometimes however this can be a good thing, as it lets the music – in this case perky synth-pop produced by James Rutledge of Everything Everything/Fever Ray fame – really do the talking.