Brixton's The Rest is Noise quietly shuts its doors
To the shock of Brixton, The Rest is Noise suddenly shut down on 1 February. Snipe has attempted to contact 580 Limited, the owner of the venue, as well as the owner of theAmersham Arms, The Lock Tavern, and the Owl & The Pussycat, but haven’t heard anything yet. Click through for a photo of the empty room.
04 Feb 2011
London agenda for Friday 4 February
1. Hear a few smart people from LSE and a journalist coolly debate the impact of the spending review [Le Cool]
2. Believe in bass at the Nest’s Stop.Drop.Roll [Run Riot]
3. Read a book at the Heath Library [Tired of London]
4. Have your eyes deceive you at Meta Architecture [Flavorpill]
04 Feb 2011
Geriatric organisation that selects members by male primogeniture okay with iPads
The House of Lords has approved members using iPads during debates in the chamber, as long as they are not used to research the item being debated.
(H/T Ian Visits)
03 Feb 2011
Five most fascinating Wikipedia lists
Wikipedia is 10 years old, and to celebrate its wholly deserved rise to ubiquity, here are five treasure troves from the site which should keep you amused for about a year each. Get lost in there why don’t you?
List of Paraphilias
Paraphilia is a fancy word for sexual deviancy. I think that’s all you need to know. If any Wikipedia page could ever be unsuitable for work, then this is probably it. Don’t go getting any ideas now…
Butterflies of Great Britain
Butterflies are beautiful, aren’t they? And so symbolic. Did you know the Ancient Greek word for butterfly was the same as their word for soul? Or that Vladimir Nabokov was a committed lepidopterist? Snipe did, but then we’ve just been reading about them on Wikipedia. Anyway this list has lots of pretty photos. Our favourite: the Purple Emperor
Self identifying alcoholics
Where does F. Scott Fitzgerald rub shoulders with Keith Chegwin? Where does Buster Keaton buy a round for Clarissa Dickson Wright? Here, that’s where.
World War II Deception Operations
This is worth it for the names alone. Operation Ironside, Operation Fortitude, the unbelievably sinister Operation Blumenpflücken (Flower Picking). Perhaps the most amazing is Operation Mincemeat which is too outrageous to recount here, involving as it does washed up corpses and faked overdraft demands. Read it, it’s amazing.
Polymaths
This will make you feel a bit sick. Sample entry: Isaac Asimov (1920–1992); Having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 9,000 letters and postcards, his works have been published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System. Bastard.
03 Feb 2011
Verb/Re/Verb 'Youth' Mixtape
‘Youth’ has become a dirty word in this country. One can almost hear a collective tut, rising from the mildly agoraphobic, Daily Mail heartlands of suburbia like a sonic boom, at the mere mention of the word. What many of these curtain-twitching, scare-mongers fail to grasp is that while a handful of teenagers utilise social media and the like to devise new and interesting ways of killing and maiming each other, many more take advantage of the positive, creative opportunities on offer.
Take 15-year-old Los Angeles resident Eloise De La Rosa, author of the verb/re/verb blog. Though her writing sometimes betrays her age, she is nothing if not enthusiastic and knowledgeable about new music. Last week she released a free mixtape, pulling together her favourite artists aged 18 and under, all doing a cover of a song they listened to as a child. Amongst others, it features Galapagos, covering N’Sync’s ‘Tearing up my heart’ and a version of Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’, by San Diego’s Kynan (more of whom tomorrow). Download it here.
Artwork by Sam Ray
03 Feb 2011
London agenda for Thursday 3 February
1. Pirouette away the evening with the American Ballet Company [Le Cool]
2. Re-stage Harry Jacobs’ famous photographic studio, X Presents [Run Riot]
3. Try Belgian beers at Lowlander [Tired of London]
4. Explore the twisted side of modern love with Jessica Fellows [Flavorpill]
03 Feb 2011
Racist and Homophobic crime on the rise in London
There has been a worrying increase in racist and homophobic hate crimes in London over the past four years, new figures reveal.
The number of racist incidents has risen by 7% since 2006/7 and homophobic incidents have risen by 28 per cent, according to figures released to the London Assembly
Last year 10,268 racist and 1545 homophobic incidents were reported to police across the capital.
Studies estimate that three out of four hate crimes are not even reported by victims.
Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member Dee Doocey said today:
“These figures are not some temporary snapshot of certain crimes that can be casually dismissed but instead powerful evidence of a very serious rise in hate crime across the capital. The rise in race and especially homophobic incidents is deeply disturbing.”
03 Feb 2011
Barnet's drivers get run over by councillor Coleman
Drivers in Barnet are feeling sore after being called “hysterical” for protesting about a doubling in the cost of parking permits.
Barnet Council’s environment chief – as well as Barnet and Camden assembly member – Brian Coleman is Boris Johnson’s fire authority chairman in his day job, where he has won friends and influenced people by threatening to sack all 5,500 of the capital’s firefighters.
Our photo shows him relaxing after, or maybe during, a hard day’s toil serving Londoners.
At a council meeting on his home turf, he angered locals by unveiling plans to increase the cost of Barnet’s parking permits from £42 to £100, as well as scrapping free parking bays and hiking up the cost of pay-and-display fees.
According to the Evening Standard, he garnished his announcement with these warm words: “We are proposing to increase parking charges to less than £2 per week, less than the price of a cup of coffee. We will not entertain this sort of nonsense from hysterical, over-the-top residents.”
He also told residents of posh Hampstead Garden Suburb they could easily afford the extra cost, boasting he “never knowingly undercharged” on car parking vouchers.
Barnet’s by no means the only council hiking up parking charges, with all London’s boroughs grappling with slashed budgets.
But it may well be the only one where a senior councillor can get away with verbally attacking those who protest. A few of his town hall colleagues across the capital may well be casting envious looks in his direction.
As for the drivers of Barnet, they can join a long list of people the good councillor for Totteridge ward has taken on.
They include London’s firefighters and their union, West End theatres and theatre-goers, anyone who wants to see his expenses, Britain’s Olympic gold medallists, and pesky bloggers.
02 Feb 2011
Don’t be a stranger by Feldberg
Feldberg are Icelandic indie-pop duo Rósa Birgitta Ísfeld and Einar Tönsberg. Formed in Reykjavik in 2008, they’ve garnered much praise in their home country, winning best song at the 2010 Icelandic music awards (for ‘Dreamin’) and a coveted spot on ‘Kitsune Maison 9’. They finally release their debut album in the UK on 11th April: ‘Don’t be a stranger’ will be available through Smalltown America, as will a preceding single of the same name, released February 28th.
02 Feb 2011
Why Boris shouldn't be over the moon about his cycle hire scheme
“Cycle Hire customers cycle to the moon and back 13 times in the first six months” applauded a Transport for London press release yesterday, which sounds impressive until you actually start to think about it.
“More than 2.5million journeys had been undertaken on the hire bikes since they were introduced on July 30” explains the Evening Standard, which again sounds impressive until you realise that over 6 million journeys have been made on London’s buses since yesterday.
And whilst 2.5 million journeys have been made on hire bikes in six months, over a similar period over 1000 million journeys will have been made on the back of the proverbial Clapham Omnibus.
As I’ve written for Snipe before, the cycle hire scheme is a fun but niche activity, enjoyed by a privileged few.
And new figures released to the London Assembly this week shows that it is not getting much less niche very quickly.
The previously registration-only scheme was opened to “casual users” in December and take-up has been strikingly low.
So far an average of little over a thousand users a day have paid for the scheme via their credit cards, that’s only a handful per docking station, per day
And with 7-8 million people living in London, Boris’s “cycling revolution” looks unlikely to take over the streets any time soon.
02 Feb 2011
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
- Number of people using Thames cable car plunges
- Hope and despair in Woolwich town centre
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- Summer Camp: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days
- Could red kites be London's next big nature success story?
- An interview with Desiree Akhavan
- Silencing the Brick Lane curry touts could be fatal for the city's self-esteem
- Diary of the shy Londoner
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