Gosh! Comics
Outside Gosh the Bat Signal hangs like a call to London’s comic fans. With old Underground signs and school desks (complete with cannabis leaves carved by bored teenagers) for tables, long benches to read and relax on, old factory lights and sparse metal shelving to let the light in, it’s not just the stock that’s impressive, but the whole experience.
Started by Josh Palmano in 1986, Gosh is due to celebrate it’s 26th birthday this year. After meeting someone at a Specials gig when Josh was 12 years old, he got his first job at a comic shop. Leaving school at 16 to follow his passion, he never looked back. They moved to their Berwick Street location 6 months ago from Bloomsbury and it seems that Josh has now created his dream shop.
When Gosh started its main aim was to sell back issues of comics to other fans. These days they stock a much wider selection, still selling comics but also graphic novels for adults and children, manga, and graphic design and illustration books to cater for the soho market. Spread over two floors, downstairs is more superhero orientated while upstairs is more accessible.
Josh aims to stock things that you won’t find anywhere else, because of this he has to seek out artists that are not widely distributed and deal directly with them. He admits that sometimes this is a lot of work for little gain but he enjoys getting artists out to a wider audience that wouldn’t otherwise be easily available.
The new Berwick Street store also offers a better setting for events and signings. With two doors they can have signings going in one door and out another to minimise waiting times, and with all the extra space they have plenty of author events. Some upcoming ones include Craig Thompson and Eddie Campbell. (See here for more information.) They also currently have an exhibition from the book Nelson dotted around the shop, a combination of 54 artist’s work, with proceeds going to the charity Shelter.
With lovely staff, all as fanatical about comics as josh and a really cool interior, Gosh is definitely somewhere you need to visit whether you’re a Graphic Novel lover or not.
18 Jan 2012
Annoying habits of Londoners #1: Applauding at the cinema
I saw The Artist the other day. It was excellent, highly recommend, must see etc etc.
The rest of the audience thought so too, because as the credits rolled they burst into spontaneous applause.
This I cannot stomach. Who were they clapping? Not the director, whose vision they had so enjoyed. Not the actors, whose talents made it real. Not the sound men, or the key grip, the editor or the best boys. None of these people were in the cinema to receive the applause.
The only people the audience could conceivably be applauding were themselves. They were clapping their own good taste in going to see a film they so much enjoyed. The noise I heard was the sound of a hundred self-satisfied slaps on the back. Cease, cinema goers, from this odious practice. You’ll receive a standing ovation (metaphorical), from me, in return.
Follow Mike
Twitter: @MikPollitt
Email: michael.pollitt@snipelondon.com
18 Jan 2012
Pigs have as much chance of landing in the Thames estuary as planes. So what's going on?
If a plan looks insane, sounds insane and feels insane, there’s a good chance it’s a Boris Johnson policy proposal which has absolutely no chance of getting built. (Further examples here)
The government announced this morning they will consult on a new airport in the Thames estuary. I can tell you now that pigs have as much chance of landing there as planes do. It’s not going to happen.
The local councils are against it. The local MPs are against it. The RSPB don’t know whether to cry or laugh. The government ran away from a fight over forestry sales after being kindly asked to stop by some well-mannered folk in hunter wellies – do you really think they’ll stand and fight for this?
All for what? All so the South East can unveil a shiny new service station for businessmen en route from New York to Shanghai, which will be ready to open at just around the time oil shortages, environmental devastation and improved communications make it uneconomic to fly.
It’s bonkers. So what’s really going on?
Lib Dem AM Caroline Pidgeon reckons it’s all part of a grand re-election gameplan for the Mayor.
If she’s right, expect to hear the “we’re planning a brand spanking new airport to deliver jobs, business etc” line trotted out plenty over the next few months, then completely forgotten after May.
The Mayor’s biographer, Sonia Purnell, thinks a longer game is afoot:
This farrago is so depressing.
Adam Bienkov on the Mayor’s other failed ideas
Medway council leader calls airport plan pie in the sky
Kent MP Mark Reckless is having none of estuary airport
RSPB – Decades of rejection haven’t stilled demands for a Thames estuary airport
New London airport: it’s all about transfer passengers
18 Jan 2012
London agenda for Wednesday 18 January
1. Get top tips on becoming a drag queen [Le Cool]
2. View Sarah Strang’s collaboration with rough sleepers at Movement in Sleep [Run Riot]
3. See a film for a fiver at The Water Poet [Don’t Panic]
4. Watch the Theatre Royal Bath’s production of the Madness of King George III [Time Out]
5. Spend the day scrubbing out drainage ditches so water voles can live a life of leisure [Ian Visits]
6. Drink at the Gun, E14 [Tired of London]
18 Jan 2012
'Battle Hymn of the Fox Father' by Dad Rocks
Snipe favourite Dad Rocks, aka 26-year-old Snævar Njáll Albertsson, received heaps of praise for his 2011 debut Mount Modern, and deservedly so. His is a particularly charming brand of domesticated folk. Today’s MPFree is album centrepiece Battle Hymn of the Fox Father – possibly the first indie song to mention Twitter. Download a free Snow Kite remix here.
17 Jan 2012
Sleep Party People - A Dark God Heart
This haunting new video premiered today over at The Guardian. A spookily bemasked child searches an empty bath, set to Sleep Party People’s eerie, tinkling dream-pop, and finds something unexpected lurking in the water.
17 Jan 2012
Stop being horny
South Londoner Mark Warren created the above video to help combat the rise in rhinoceros killings by poachers looking to grind up their horns. Listen to what Mark says.
17 Jan 2012
London agenda for Tuesday 17 January
1. Blend in to the crowd to see Zelig [Le Cool]
2. Watch the best five episodes of AbFab at the Book Club [Run Riot]
3. Look at Catherine Yass’s haunting photographs of the Royal Sovereign Lighthouse [Flavorpill]
4. Prepare to be buried in an avalanche of music, dance and unexpected performances at Punk [Don’t Panic]
5. Respect how Time Out has its fingers on the pulse of comedy by recommending Alexai Sayle [Time Out]
6. Check out the hidden alleys of London with the Matt Brown, editor of the Londonist and author David Long [Ian Visits]
7. Take a walk around Three Mills Island [Tired of London]
17 Jan 2012
Housing benefit cuts might be unfair to some Londoners. But so's the status quo
Dave Hill has a case study in the Guardian looking at how housing benefit cuts will impact on Londoners.
His subject is Lucy Glennon, a 26-year-old freelance writer who has a condition called epidermolysis bullosa, which Dave calls “a brute of a disorder, causing the skin to blister and break as a result of almost any kind of friction or bump”. Nothing that follows should be taken as criticism of Lucy, my argument is certainly not with her.
Lucy lives off the Euston Rd in a 2 bedroom flat costing £400pw. She was receiving £350pw in government funded housing benefit, now down to £290pw. If the cuts hold, she may have no choice but to move. Please read Dave’s piece for the full background.
Dave calls it “a hard price to pay for so much determination and endeavour – the very things London is supposed to reward.”
I don’t disagree with this statement.
But nor do I agree that the government should be using £350 per week, £18,200 per year, of public money to house someone.
This isn’t an argument about principle or ideology, it’s an argument about degree. £18,200 per year is an amount many Londoners struggle to earn in a year, let alone spend on their rent. By seeking to be fair to Lucy, we end up being unfair to them.
Dave Hill in The Guardian – The cuts in London: where will Lucy live?
16 Jan 2012
TfL has a suggestion to lower cyclist deaths at the Bow flyover
The above video is a proposal by Transport for London to reshape the bicycle lane at the Bow flyover, a spot notorious for cyclist deaths.
16 Jan 2012
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- 9 poems about London: one for each of your moods
- The best church names in London, and where they come from
- An interview with Desiree Akhavan
- Silencing the Brick Lane curry touts could be fatal for the city's self-esteem
- Could red kites be London's next big nature success story?
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- A unique collection of photos of Edwardian Londoners
- Peter Bayley has worked for 50 years as a cinema projectionist in East Finchley
- Summer Camp: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
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