US telly makes fun of British film with 'Don' You Go Rounin' Roun to Re Ro' trailer
Long-running US sketch comedy show, Saturday Night Live, premiered this trailer last Saturday (natch.) Featuring host Russell Brand.
15 Feb 2011
Boris Johnson's electric car revolution loses its spark
Boris Johnson has been forced to scale back his plan to make London the “electric car capital of Europe” following government cuts and resistance from local authorities.
Plans announced last year for 7500 new electric car charging points by 2013 have been reduced to just 1300.
A spokesperson for the Mayor admitted to The Scoop that “extreme budgetary pressures” on both public and private funding had hit the scheme.
The scheme has also met strong resistance from local authorities concerned about the cost and safety of the scheme.
Previously announced plans for a new electric car hire scheme have also been put on hold with Boris saying last week that he has no current plans to develop one.
Green London Assembly Member Darren Johnson said yesterday: “this Mayoral ambition to make London the electric car capital of Europe has completely lost its spark… There appeared to be a solid commitment to some short term funding made a year ago, but most of that money has now disappeared.”
However, the Mayor’s office claim that a revision to the “London Plan” requiring charging points at all new buildings will still lead to thousands more electric charging points being provided.
A spokesperson for the Mayor said:
We are working with Government and the private sector to leverage in more money in addition to our own investment in order to deliver the Mayor’s ambitions plans, kick start the electric vehicle market and enable electric vehicle infrastructure to be put on a sustainable commercial footing, lessening the need for public funding, as soon as possible.”
Last year a £100,000 pilot project in Haringey resulted in just one person signing up to the scheme.
15 Feb 2011
Exhibition Guide: 14 - 20 February
Postcards From Vegas
Fine Art Society, 148 New Bond St, Bond Street, W1S 2 JT
Rob and Nick Carter’s personal collection of postcards combine nostalgic childhood memories and a love of neon. Taking postcards from the 60s and 70s the pair experiment with neon signs that have been found on location at motels, diners and casinos. Until 15 Feb.
Rhombus Sectus
Bischoff/Weiss, 14a Hay Hill, Green Park, W1J 8NJ
Raphaël Zarka’s on-going series of enigmatic work revolves around various pre-existing forms. For his first solo show at Bischoff/Weiss, the artist focuses his attention on a particular shape: the Rhombicuboctahedron, (an Archimedean solid composed of eighteen square and eight triangular faces). Until 19 Feb.
British Art Snow 7
The Hayward, Southbank Centre, Waterloo, SE1 8XX
Through sculpture, video, film, installations, performance and painting the British Art Show 7 explores ways in which contemporary British art conjures up distant histories, the vivid present and imaginary futures. 16 Feb – 17 April.
Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard
South London Gallery, 65 Peckham Rd, Oval, SE5 8UH
Compelling and stunning, the duo’s collaborative film, video and sound works taken from the last seven years are definitely something that shouldn’t be missed. The body of performances, cultural re-enactments and musical exploration all encourage audience participation. Until 18 Mar.
14 Feb 2011
Ken takes lead over Boris in Mayoral race
Ken Livingstone has edged ahead of Boris Johnson for the first time since he was selected as Labour’s candidate, a new poll has found.
Ken has the backing of 45% of Londoners with Boris very close behind on 43% according to pollsters YouGov.
Just 6% say they will vote for the Liberal Democrat candidate, who has not yet been selected by the party.
However, with neither leading candidate above 50%, second preference votes could still secure re-election for Johnson.
And forced to choose between the two, YouGov have still found a slight edge for the Conservative candidate
The result suggests that the Mayoral race next year could be much tighter than previously predicted.
And with the two candidates both fighting over very similar ground, the poll may indicate that many Londoners are struggling to choose between them.
The results of the poll appear to get a brief mention in today’s Evening Standard.
Unlike a rather different poll conducted for the paper last September.
14 Feb 2011
The 18th Century, putting the pornography into poetry
I wonder if T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste land’ would prove more popular with a little more smut in it. How about some Seamus Heaney with a cleverly placed dildo? Well, an Oxford academic has recently found pornographic poems hidden at the end of a popular 18th Century poetry volume.
14 Feb 2011
All That by Stig of the Dump
A quick one today (it is Monday after all). Self-proclaimed ‘sexiest fat man in show business’, Stig of the Dump, is releasing a series of monthly dubstep bootleg giveaways (‘Stig of the dubs’) via his Bandcamp page. Get the first – ‘All that’, a re-working of Sukh Knight and P. Money’s ‘Slang like this’ – here. His new album, ‘Mood swings’, is available via Lewis Recordings.
14 Feb 2011
Mopey Monday quote: Valentine's day edition
This week’s slice of unpositive thinking has a romantic theme.
“I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an end…But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death; I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck.”
- Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
14 Feb 2011
London agenda for Monday 14 February
1. Hear the intense, loud and downright awesome affair of Sleigh Bells [Tom Jenkins]
2. Watch the animation and storytelling of Six and a half loves [Run Riot]
3. Listen to the dark drama and religious grim of Vile Imbeciles, Our Mountain, and Coxon’s Riot [London Gigs]
4. Visit the Bali Bombing Memorial [Tired of London]
5. Challenge performance poets to write and perform the worst valentine poem they can possibly come up with at the Anti-Valentine’s Poetry slam [Jon Davis]
14 Feb 2011
Sin Fang
The Icelandic indie maestro skates the Reykjavik coastline in the video for his new single “Because Of The Blood”, from the forthcoming album “Summer Echoes”.
13 Feb 2011
Exit, Stag Left
Above the Stag Theatre, situated, reasonably enough, above The Stag pub just off Victoria Station has been given a brief reprieve. Plans for the redevelopment of Bressenden Place apparently don’t include the pub, and artistic director Peter Bull was given notice to leave three weeks ago, effectively ending the season. Can’t do much theatre on a work site, where your only audience is going to be sweaty, buff construction workers in filthy jeans and no T shirts jiggling with jackhammers or sashaying about in slow motion carrying their enormous tool kits.
The stay of execution allows ATS to mount their production of My Beautiful Laundrette in March, and a new musical by Taggart writer Glenn Chandler called Cleveland Street. Then the rainbow beflagged company will have to find a new home. In all honesty, this might be a good thing. Bull did the best he could, but it is a difficult space. A narrow lane of a stage, a catwalk really, looks more suitable for small fashion show or an even smaller bowling alley. Hopefully they’ll find somewhere new soon. It won’t be easy, if a likely prerequisite is that it needs to be above a gay/lesbian bar. However, there are several homosexuals in the theatre industry and with barely a smidge of luck somebody is bound to put forward a cool venue that only needs an playhouse upstairs to be the perfect place to pop in, grab a date and have a ready-made night out.
12 Feb 2011
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
- Could red kites be London's next big nature success story?
- A unique collection of photos of Edwardian Londoners
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- An interview with Desiree Akhavan
- London has chosen its mayor, but why can’t it choose its own media?
- Diary of the shy Londoner
- Silencing the Brick Lane curry touts could be fatal for the city's self-esteem
- Nice map of London's fruit trees shows you where to pick free food
- Summer Camp: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days
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