London agenda for Tuesday 5 July
1. Watch the premiere of Hobo with a Shotgun at Xoyo, the first film from Tarantino’s Grindhouse trailer project [Le Cool]
2. Meet an ‘actual’ ‘witch’ and watch her ‘cast spells’ at Treadwells [Run Riot]
3. Listen to electro-pop duo New Look at the Shacklewell Arms [Flavorpill]
4. Go see the pretty flowers at Hampton Court [Time Out]
5. Geek out over typoography at Printing and Publishing in Clerkenwell [Ian Visits]
6. Wander Streatham Common [Tired of London]
05 Jul 2011
Olympic lanes will risk lives claims Ken Livingstone
Ken Livingstone has called on Boris Johnson to reverse his plans to remove dozens of pedestrian crossings during the Olympics, claiming that it will risk lives. TfL are consulting on plans to close over 50 pedestrian crossings as part of the Olympic Route Network.
05 Jul 2011
Statue of limitations: Reagan monstrosity should be London's last
Today is officially London sculpture unveiling day! First, the bizarre, massive Ronald Reagan near the US Embassy:
According to the Beeb, the statue proclaims: “Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot”. Which translates as “Stop your boasting, once oppressed peoples of Eastern Europe. It was the rich white American wot won it.”
Now compare Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror unveiled today in the City:
It’s, inclusive, interactive and pretty. The Reagan statue is intrusive, redundant and ugly. I really hope that the age of boring statues of rich men is pretty much finished now. Off with their heads, says I!
Images from The Foreign Office’s Flickr and Discovering London, an excellent London blog which I encourage you to drop in on from time to time.
UPDATE
And let’s not forget this blast from the past, where Ronald Reagan denied illegally selling arms to Iran to fund his illegal war in South America then was caught and made this breathtaking apology.
04 Jul 2011
Bethnal Green tube station goes postal with its posters
Why have no less than 21 identical posters been put up on the westbound platform at Bethnal Green? It’s exactly the same message repeated ad absurdum in both directions as far as the eye can see, and IT’S NOT EVEN THE FOOTBALL SEASON. Completely insane.
04 Jul 2011
Global hipster pilgrimage announced for this autumn
From the mouths of the prophets at Pitchfork:
Let the word go forth from this time and place that there will be a great congregation gathered upon the earth, that will meet in Paris, which is in France. For the hipsters shall come from the north and from the south, from the east and from the west, ten thousand beards times ten thousand, clothed in a raiment of red and white checked shirts and skinny jeans. And before them will stand a great stage, and upon the stage will sit Iver, that is called Bon, and they will play music, and all of the ills of the world will pass away.
I’m paraphasing. Read the full proclamation here.
04 Jul 2011
London agenda for Monday 4 July
1. Recognise US Independence Day with a Camden hot dog eating contest [Le Cool]
2. Watch this year’s crop of student films at the BFI. Because nothing is more accessible than a student film at an art house. [Run Riot]
3. Watch a live feed of Madama Butterfly from the Royal Opera House in Walthamstow Town Square [Time Out]
4. Get a free tour of the London Library because one is ‘considering taking out a membership’ [Ian Visits]
5. Do watersports in Danson Park [Tired of London]
04 Jul 2011
They make a desert, and they call it "a finely judged reconfiguration of our academic portfolio"
The Classics department at Royal Holloway is under threat. Oh, many of you philistines won’t care, I know. but I feel compelled to publicise this travesty in the hope that it can be averted.
01 Jul 2011
Being struck by lightning really brings out the LOLs
Strange goings on in Sutton this week. Teaching assistant Tom Langham was standing outside the front of Hackbridge Primary School after a bolt of lightning struck the building, setting off its fire alarm, when he was hit by a second strike at about 1.45pm.
01 Jul 2011
Canada Day tips for Londoners
How will you celebrate that day, 144 years ago, when the UK gave Canada permission to govern their own internal affairs – except when the viceroy disagreed?
01 Jul 2011
Milk by The Bronze Medal
Bristol’s The Bronze Medal are named after their favourite Idlewild song and there’s definitely a hint of Roddy Woomble and co’s later work in their debut single. Epic but still tender, accessible without being middle of the road, Milk consistently threatens to explode into the stratosphere over its nigh on five minutes, but never does and is all the better for exhibiting such quiet restraint.
30 Jun 2011
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
- Summer Camp: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days
- 9 poems about London: one for each of your moods
- 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
- Number of people using Thames cable car plunges
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
- Diary of the shy Londoner
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