Do you want to sit on the tube all night drinking and chatting up hotties? Here's your chance
Disney unveils some of the new attractions on its Carribbean cruise ship Disney Fantasy. Aside from sounding like a porn site where Jasmine from Aladdin and Simba from the Lion King finally get it on, the ship boasts a section of bars seductively called Europa.
“La Piazza is themed after Italian cities and their decorative outdoor plazas…O’Gill’s Pub is a rollicking Irish bar with modern day twists. Ooh La La is inspired by an elegant French boudoir adorned with velvet tufted walls. And finally, The Tube transports guests to a vibrant metropolitan club via the London Underground.” [Via Annie Mole]
So you have a choice between a French boudoir, a “rollicking” Irish pub, an Italian piazza, or a bar inspired by somewhere dark, smelly, boiling hot and full of moody silent types. Actually, it sounds just like Snipe’s kind of place.
25 May 2011
Londoners hit by secret mid-year fare rises
Boris Johnson and National Rail have been accused of secretly hiking fares after they made a series of unannounced rises.
Last Sunday the following off-peak Railcard discounted fares were raised by up to 5%.
- TfL local fares for zones 12345 and 123456 (£1.75 to £1.80)
- TfL local fares for three, four and five zones outside zone 1 (90p to 95p)
- National Rail local fares for zone 1 (95p to £1.00)
- National Rail local fares for zones 12 (£1.10 to £1.15)
- National Rail local fares for two zones outside zone 1 (95p to £1.00)
- National Rail local fares for three zones outside zone 1 (£1.10 to £1.15)
- Through fares between TfL and National Rail for zone 1 (£1.75 to £1.80)
- Through fares between TfL and National Rail for two zones outside zone 1 (95p to £1.00)
- Through fares between TfL and National Rail for three zones outside zone 1 (£1.10 to £1.15)
Fare levels for the year were set in January and there has been no subsequent announcement of any changes.
The rises were first noticed by one commuter Steve Chambers but were only revealed in full after we contacted Transport for London.
Chambers told The Scoop:
I was surprised to learn of these rises after I was charged and was puzzled by the mid-year timing, knowing that fares normally rise in January. Most annoying is the complete lack of publicity, although the database behind the fare finder was updated. The rises appear to target vulnerable groups reliant on discounts.
A spokesperson for TfL said that the fares had been inaccurately calculated in January and that it was now necessary to “correct” them:
At the January fares revision the complex formula for these fares was not yet available so they were set lower than they should have been. However the train operating companies have now provided the relevant information and they were corrected on 22 May.
TfL claim that similar changes are made several times a year and that it is not normal procedure to alert passengers.
The Lib Dem Chair of the London Assembly transport Committee Caroline Pidgeon said that passengers should have been told about the changes:
“Boris Johnson has real form in pushing through fare rises in an underhand way. He has already been caught red handed over his attempt to sneak through fare rises as high as 74% by abolishing Zone 2 to 6 Travelcards this year. I am not aware of previous mid year fare increases and think it is extraordinary that this has been sneaked out. The Mayor should publish his fare proposals for all fares for the year ahead and fully consult Londoners on his plans.
The news comes as the Mayor’s Annual London Survey reveals that 48% of Londoners believe cheaper fares are the area of transport “most in need of improvement.” This is up from 36% in 2009.
Update: (26th May) I was on BBC London talking about this story earlier today:
25 May 2011
London agenda for Wednesday 25 May
1. Hear some clever, unfussy pop with CocknBullKid Bonus! Free show. [Le Cool]
2. ‘Get the Lowe-down on Hollywood’ with Rob Lowe at the Royal Geographical Society? [Run Riot]
3. Discover the Jewish contribution to the British entertainment industry at the Jewish Museum [Flavorpill]
4. Run for the hills because compared to this, the Industrial Revolution was nothing! [Ian Visits]
5. Relax by the river at The Weir, Walton on Thames [Tired of London]
6. Explore fashion and youth culture with photography team Lydia Garnett and Vic Lentaigne [Lauren Down]
7. Hear the literary, introverted and sometimes revelatory lyrics of Mountain Goats [John Rogers]
25 May 2011
Boris Johnson's cycling revolution gets another puncture
Despite millions of pounds of advertising and masses of local, national and even international publicity, less than half of one per cent of Londoners say they regularly use Boris Johnson’s cycle hire scheme.
A survey of Londoners commissioned by the Mayor confirms the tiny impact the hire scheme is having, with less than 7 out of 1406 respondents saying they use the bikes at least once a month.
The number of people saying they regularly use their own bikes in London has also fallen from 10 per cent prior to Boris’s “cycling revolution” to 4 per cent now.
Figures released to the London Assembly this month show that the number of journeys on the hire bikes is growing but is still well below the amount predicted in the scheme’s business case.
And whilst the Annual London survey suggests that the number of journeys is going up, the number of people making those journeys remains a tiny and very elite fraction of Londoners.
25 May 2011
A Screaming Man
Mahamet-Saleh Haroun’s third cinematic feature, sparse and emotionally kinetic, tells the modern-day allegorical tale of a Chadian man, Adam (Youssouf Djaoro); once unchangeable by the world, and content in his life, while seemingly devoted to his family (but more so his past), who begins to disintegrate as a result of pressures outside his usually taut control; forces which jolt him out of his still-water complacency.
24 May 2011
"The sexuality of angularity" - why are acute angles just so damn sexy?
“Features that protrude are ungainly to Chinese sensibilities…smoothness and alignment are idealised. Things like thrusting cheekbones won’t appeal. [In contrast] the West likes that combination of the sexuality of angularity and the smoothness of skin.”
[Advertising guru Tom Doctoroff on differences between Western and Eastern ideals of beauty in supermodels, quoted in this month’s Vogue.]
Idea for an engaging maths GCSE question, worded thus:
Using principles of Euclidean geometry, evaluate whether the following faces are hot or not:
a.) Cheryl Cole, from a Chinese perspective. (5 marks)
b.) Lucy Liu, from a Western perspective. (5 marks)
c.) Lucy Liu, from a Chinese perspective which takes into account tensions arising from her Taiwanese background. (10 marks)
d.) Zhang Ziyi, from the perspective of someone born in the West to Chinese parents, who then moved back to China for a period in their teens before coming back to London to study. (20 marks)
24 May 2011
A possibly apocryphal story about inner-city onion crime
A friend of a friend likes to run. He’s pretty advanced by now (completed a marathon, owns all the kit etc), and likes to go on long boomeranging jaunts from his Bethnal Green home. The other day, on one such run, he had returned to within a few minutes of home when he heard a thudding sound behind him. The sound was too dim to have been metallic, but instinctively he stopped and turned to check if his iPod, or some such device, had fallen from him onto the floor. It had not, but on the pavement a foot behind him was a slightly damaged onion, unpeeled but with the skin flaking off where it had struck the pavement. The runner thought this odd, until his gaze was drawn sharply upwards by another onion flying towards him at head height. This one sailed by his ear. It was hurled by of a group of youths, all school age, who had taken up a position across the street. The runner challenged his assailants, enquiring what they thought they were doing. Their reply, predictably, was not verbal but vegetable. So he ran on, leaving the following questions unanswered:
1. Were the onions stolen, or acquired by legal means? If the latter, will rising food prices force downsizing to other vegetable missiles in future. Specifically shallots.
2. Is is a positive sign for our society that young East End hoodlums are using vegetables rather than knives to assail innocent passers by? Does the fact that the vegetable was unpeeled suggest that they don’t have access to any knives at all?
3. Have implicit allowances been made within the internal mechanisms of the hoodlums’ social group to allow onion handlers to cry onion tears without compromising their macho status, upon which it must be assumed the group hierarchy has been at least partly defined.
24 May 2011
London agenda for Tuesday 24 May
1. View more than forty-five exquisite drawings and water colours of the various women in Egon Schiele’s life [Le Cool]
2. Watch Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 film Pierrot Le Fou [Run Riot]
3. Kerry Tribe has two a concurrent show in two cities. One is in LA. Save yourself some money and see the one in London [Flavorpill]
4. Find out who owns the story of the future [Ian Visits]
5. Visit Beaconsfield [Tired of London]
6. See the most comprehensive exhibition of drawings by conceptual artist Michael Craig-Martin [Lauren Down]
24 May 2011
Love/Lust (Keep Shelly in Athens Remix) by D/R/U/G/S
Earlier this month Callum Wright, a.k.a. D/R/U/G/S, released his first EP for Moshi Moshi imprint Tender Age, entitled Love/Lust. The title track has been given a characteristically Balearic sounding overhaul by Keep Shelly In Athens, though it retains enough bite to avoid straying into lounge territory. You can catch Mr Wright at White Heat tomorrow with Snipe favourites Beat Connection.
D/R/U/G/S – Love/Lust (Keep Shelly in Athens Remix) by snipelondon
23 May 2011
Snipe’s Weekly Exhibition Guide: 23 - 29 May
‘Manhattan’ – Michael Craig-Martin, 1981 – The artist and Alan Cristea Gallery
Michael Craig-Martin: Drawings 1967 – 2002
Alan Cristea Gallery, 31 Cork Street, Bond Street, W1S 3NU
The most comprehensive exhibition of drawings by conceptual artist Michael Craig-Martin, this show tracks the development of the artists trademark everyday object artistic vocabulary over 40 years. Including 60 unique works that have never been seen in the public domain before, some of which have been created at the Alan Cristea gallery specifically for this show. Until 4 June
Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow
Hidde Van Seggelen, 2 Michael Road, Fullham Broadway, SW6 2AD
An unusual gallery space, the self-contained white cube that is Hidde Van Seggelen plays host to a small, international assortment of works that supposedly revolve around the title’s apocalyptic Biblical connotations. And even though only a few works seem to actually fit this loosely thematic thread, Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow is a compelling display of film and other works. Until 28 May.
LGVL
The Wayward Gallery, 47 Mowlem Street, Bethnal Green, E2 9HE
Having found in each other a mutual approach towards photography, Lydia Garnett and Vic Lentaigne formed the collaborative platform LGVL after meeting whilst studying at Brighton University. Exploring fashion and youth culture, their elegantly composed images are on display for one week only. Until 29 May.
The Foul Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart
Matt Roberts Arts, Unit 1, 25 Vyner Street, Cambridge Heath, E2 9DG
Drawing inspiration from craft and cubism Julie Cockburn’s mixed media works reveals dramas of the every day man through a manipulation of found photographic and painted portraits. Retrieving characters from obscurity, Cockburn takes ownership of their fates, cherishing them and creating something monstrously exquisite. Until 28 May.
Mute Shoot
The Print House, 18 Ashwin Street, Dalston, E8 3DL
Anyone who has ever held a camera in order to take someone portrait knows that communication is paramount: to relax the subject, get to know what might reflect their personality and in order to get them to pose in the right manner. Unable to speak, Martin Zähringer latest exhibition explores different means of discourse between artist and model. Until 31 May.
23 May 2011
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- Nice map of London's fruit trees shows you where to pick free food
- The best church names in London, and where they come from
- Punk brewery just as sexist and homophobic as the industry they rail against
- Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
- 9 poems about London: one for each of your moods
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
- Nice Interactive timeline lets you follow Londoners' historic fight against racism
- Hope and despair in Woolwich town centre
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