London agenda for Monday 9 January
1. Look at how Terence Conran, Matt Pyke, and Kate MccGwire decorate a hotel room [Run Riot]
2. Watch the Pajama Men joke about love and alien abduction at In the Middle of No One [Time Out]
3. Watch a film accusing the UN of corruption, rape, murder, and genocide at U.N. Me [Don’t Panic]
4. Find out how the Mediterranean was made [Ian Visits]
5. See the skateboard graveyard of Hungerford Bridge [Tired of London]
09 Jan 2012
My Idle Bed by Bronson
Paper Tusk is the new album from Patrick Everman’s Bronson (formerly Horses). Download it for a measly $3 here. Today’s MPFree is one of the stand-out tracks, My Idle Bed.
06 Jan 2012
London agenda for Friday 6 January
1. Skate away at Somerset House [Run Riot]
2. Hear a back-to-the-future set of influential tunes from the past two decades with A Guy Called Gerald [Flavorpill]
3. Watch a selection of the London Short Film Festival at Low Budget Mayhem [Don’t Panic]
4. Join the Geffrye’s own traditional burning of the holly and the ivy at a Farewell to Christmas [Ian Visits]
5. Learn about the St Margaret’s House Settlement [Tired of London]
06 Jan 2012
Why won't anyone make the case for fewer West End parking spaces?
The Standard reports on the ongoing Westminster parking saga. Long story short: they want to reduce the number of parking spaces and charge more for the ones that are left, and are going about it in a fairly skullduggerous manner.
Says Mayor Johnson: “This is a deeply cynical move and an appalling breach of faith. Small businesses, churchgoers, actors, and thousands of decent Londoners rely on the West End for their livelihood and we all rely on them to maintain the economic vitality of our great city.”
Ken Livingstone: “Westminster council seems to have taken leave of its senses.”
Brian Paddick: “This is absolutely outrageous behaviour by Westminster council. They are quite clearly hell-bent on damaging the economy of the West End in order to raise money from motorists.”
Call me Mr Contrarian, but in the long run would it not be better for the city to have fewer people driving in to the West End, having abandoned their cars in favour of public transport? Yes I know, fares are up. But the principle surely holds. It would be better for the environment, better for pedestrians, better for cyclists, better for the air…And yet no one will argue for it.
Livingstone and Johnson couldn’t, of course, because the headlines would be appalling. But Paddick could have flipped this issue round to push for a greener, more sustainable city centre without endorsing Westminster’s sneakery. But he didn’t, which disappoints.
Evening Standard – West End parking banned by stealth
04 Jan 2012
Boris's bus begins its pre-election tour
A curious crowd greeted Boris Johnson’s New Bus For London in Bexleyheath this morning as it made the first stop on a tour of the capital’s suburbs.
Quite why Bexleyheath had been picked to begin the Borismaster’s tour is not immediately obvious – the last Routemaster in this area ran in 1982, and bendy buses were only ever seen on the news here.
With the new bus lined up for route 38 between Victoria and Clapton, it’s unlikely the Borismaster will be bothering DA6 for a long while to come.
But this area turned out one of the strongest Conservative votes in the last mayoral election. With another one on the horizon, what better time to remind locals what they voted for?
Shoppers of all ages mingled with bus fans as they explored the bus, had their picture taken with the bus, and asked questions about the bus.
It’s a good-looking thing once you step inside. The colour scheme and design are influenced by the old Routemasters, and the seats are a damn sight more comfortable than those you’ll find on many new buses.
One well-built man even commented on how much legroom there was by the seat at the front of the top deck. “We’ve taken on board views from many quarters on designing this bus,” TfL’s rep told him.
He also pointed out that the new bus would be twice as fuel-efficient as a traditional diesel vehicle, pointing at a double-decker crawling around the bus-unfriendly one-way system.
While the locals liked the interior, the concept might be a harder sell. Asking how many would be built, one passenger wondered how much her fares would rise to pay for it.
“There’s not many seats downstairs, are there?”, said one woman. “How are they going to stop people getting on without paying?,” asked another, with a man pointing out there wasn’t much room on the platform for a conductor.
One woman looked at the retro styling and chuckled: “And they reckon this bus is new?”
But the Borismaster’s novelty value seemed to win the day. “My husband won’t believe what I’ve just seen,” a woman said as she took a picture with her phone.
How it’ll fare when called into action is another matter. It’s a long vehicle, and took a while to be gingerly driven out of the shopping precinct on its way to Bromley (Tory stronghold, last saw Routemasters in 1984).
The Borismaster got a warm welcome in Bexleyheath, but will it ever come back?
04 Jan 2012
Ronald Searle, 1920- 2011
I don’t think I learned anything at art school except a deep distrust of the art world. Everything I know about drawing I stole from Ronald Searle. It’s inexplicable, but I have only to look at the scratchy, squiggly, pulsing lines of his doodles and I’m happy. I always thought maybe, somehow, I would go to France and bribe my way with a bottle of champagne to an audience with Searle. Now that will never be. Ronald Searle has died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 91.
Every cartoonist since the fifties has been influenced by him, whether they are aware of it or not. His visual record of life and death in the Changi prisoner of war camp, created under devastating conditions and at huge risk, are still powerful today. But what he is best known for are the joyously raucous illustrations of his St. Trinian’s cartoons and the Molesworth books he did with Geoffrey Wiilans, followed by his gloriously human cats, travel illustrations, caricatures, and intensely detailed, baroquely curliecued cityscapes. His commercial illustrations helped shape the look of glossy magazines after WWII, right through to the seventies and his legion of devoted acolytes/grateful thieves now permeate the graphic design world.
He will be missed. I will miss him. But at least, whenever I scribble my own doodles, I am tapping into my love for his work and feel a little of that happiness still.
03 Jan 2012
Boris aide's 'PR disaster' on fare rise day
Remember young Boris Johnson aide Einy Shah? We met her just before Christmas, showing off her new ‘honk for Boris’ bike on Facebook.
Well, Einy’s back to start the new year with a honk. With millions of commuters returning to work today to find their rail, Tube and bus fares hiked up, Labour activists are crowing.
They say over two thousand people turned up to stations at the crack of dawn to leaflet Londoners about the fare cuts they promise if Ken Livingstone gets back in.
It wasn’t just them, mind – non-aligned groups like the Campaign for Better Transport and Bring Back British Rail have also been out complaining about the rises.
As passengers feel the pinch, what was Einy’s response on Twitter?
“well it’s been a fucking pr disaster for us – thank god for the rain…”
Language, Einy. And next time, stick “DM” in front of it, eh?
03 Jan 2012
London's cycling accidents have been mapped
Excellent work by The Telegraph. The map is so detailed that you can trace your route to work and see any accidents that happened along it, what time of day, what type of accident, and how severe. Very useful.
To no one’s surprise, except perhaps TFL on whose figures the map is based, Blackfriars Bridge features prominently.
The Telegraph – Graphic: London’s cycle accident black spots mapped
03 Jan 2012
The twenty most viewed posts from 2011
Thank god for top 20 lists. They give the illusion of new content and can easily be generated before nipping back into the bottom of the Gingerbread Bailey’s.
What do Snipe readers care about? The riots, transportation, running for mayor, and watching Camilla be dissed, apparently.
The top twenty by page views (low to high).
- Labour rebel faces Lambeth axe for cuts protest
- Thames Cable Car delayed following crash fears
- Lewisham Council pushes through library closures
- Friend Crush by Friends
- Walthamstow cinema fans see off church plans – for now
- For sale: One disused Tube station, slightly soiled
- London’s underground entrepreneur strikes again
- Five filthy, dirty, obscenely sexual poems from the past
- Five great London journeys into the sunset
- 10 things I learned at the opera, by a first time opera goer
- The revolution will be tweeted, because Tottenham sure wasn’t televised
- Lembit Opik limps out of Mayoral race
- Five ways you shouldn’t respond to the looting
- Republican ‘Not the Royal Wedding’ street party banned by Camden Council
- 2011’s big news stories that already bore us to tears
- Londoners hit by secret mid-year fare rises
- Boris Johnson’s staged rows with government exposed
- TfL to be renamed Barclays London Transport
- Talk of ‘rioters attacking their own communities’ misses the point
- Did the Queen diss Camilla in front of two billion viewers? [Video]
03 Jan 2012
London agenda for Tuesday 3 January
1. Watch some of examples of Charles Dickens on film from the silent film era [Run Riot]
2. Go to Green Lanes ans kick ash [Ian Visits]
4. Watch Artery, Cold In Berlin, The Neat, and Partly Faithful at the Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen [London Gigs]
London Agenda is Snipe’s daily compilation of what to do in London as suggested by everyone else. Send additions to listings@snipelondon.com
03 Jan 2012
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- A unique collection of photos of Edwardian Londoners
- Could red kites be London's next big nature success story?
- Punk brewery just as sexist and homophobic as the industry they rail against
- Nice Interactive timeline lets you follow Londoners' historic fight against racism
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- An interview with Desiree Akhavan
- Peter Bayley has worked for 50 years as a cinema projectionist in East Finchley
- Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
- Random Interview: Eileen Conn, co-ordinator of Peckham Vision
- The best church names in London, and where they come from
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