Week in Books: From Mills & Boon to Guantanamo Bay

Bookstock– 7pm Saturday 22nd
Not necessarily the place for psychedelic drugs and free love, but drop in for spoken word, comedy and book swapping.
The Hat & Tun, 3 Hatton Wall, EC1N 8HX. Ticket £15

Mills & Boon Workshop – 6pm Tuesday 25th
‘He dismounted his steed and took her in his throbbing arms.’ If you’d like to write your very own Mills & Boon romance novel, get yourself and your innuendos down to this workshop.
Brompton Library, 210 Old Brompton Road, SW5 0BS. Tickets £5

Patti Smith Talk with Geoff Dyer – 6.30pm Tuesday 25 Jan
Patti Smith the musician, poet, writer, artist and Warhol Factory reveller, talks to the affable, acclaimed novelist Geoff Dyer. Expect tales from the 70s New York punk rock scene and her friendship with William Burrows and Allen Ginsberg.
Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR

The Guantanamo Poems – 7pm Thursday 27th
Hear poetry straight from the pens of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, revealing what life is like in orange jump suits and iron cages.
Calder Bookshop, 51 The Cut, SE1 8LF. Tickets £6

Terri White leaves Shortlist for the Sun's Buzz

After two years editing free tube weekly Shortlist, editor Terri White has accepted the editorship of Buzz, the Sun’s TV mag.

Isotype International Picture Language

Image Courtesy of the artist, Reading University and The V&A

Throughout his life Otto Neurath collected maps, city plans, battle scenes and educational toys which he considered the precursor to Isotype, the International Standard of Typographic Pictorial Education. Along with Marie Neurath, Otto developed this system to make statistics accessible and educational.

The movement initially took off in Russia during the 30s, where the diagrammatic style of Isotype lent itself perfectly to the Izostat Institute, whose primary task was to communicate the claimed socio-economic achievements of the Soviet Union to a mass audience. Perhaps it’s just as well that their relations with the Soviet Authorities broke down and Isotype wasn’t confined to such conclusive simplicity.

Instead, Marie and Otto continued educating the masses with their appealing and understandable visualisations. ‘Around Rembrandt’ was an innovative Dutch department store-based display, which examined the social and historical background of Rembrandt’s work. The display highlights how little is done to help the public understand the work of famous painters and it would be fascinating to see this style applied more widely.

The Neuraths went on to create visualisations for health education, and the
NHS. Their series of books for children is particularly mesmerising and remarkably well researched: demonstrating the importance of synthesizing information into small chunks and linking visuals to ideas. In this age of billion pound deficits, million pound bonuses, intangible viruses and information overload let’s give a thumbs up to useable stats. Until 13 March.

Victoria and Albert Museum, Studio Gallery room 17a and 18a

Ghoul

It’s good to see Croydon’s biggest export since Kate Moss and the non-surgical facelift – Dubstep – making a splash in the farthest reaches of the southern hemisphere. Sydney’s Ghoul wear their South London influences firmly on their sleeves. Today’s MPFree is a track from forthcoming EP ‘Dunks’, released February 1st on Speak ‘n’ Spell. It chugs along nicely enough, before kicking off a bit in the middle and towards the end. Gives me the James Blakes.

Ghoul – 3 Mark by snipelondon

Everything you need to know about the 10 o'clock live. A review.

Apparently they thought that nobody would notice that only the boys got to do funny bits. David Mitchell is a great interviewer. Charlie Brooker is still good at the rant but he didn’t extend himself. Unlike the rest of the world, we don’t hate Jimmy Carr but he can’t conduct an interview. The best parts were reminiscent of the guest portion of the Daily Show. The worst parts were the pre-taped bits reminiscent of the 11 o’clock show. It really should be a half-hour programme. Channel 4 has a potential hit on its hands.

London agenda for Friday 21 January

1. Listen to a Chicago house flashback with yacht rock vocals with Teengirl Fantasy at the Lex [Le Cool]

2. Enter a world of surreal stock-brokers, broken bankers and gamble on a good time in a live fluctuating stock market at Crisis a la Mode [Run Riot]

3. Eat at the Horseshoe Inn – the Mongolian pub [Tired of London]

4. Fuzz out to grunge riffs with Healthy Junkies, Delta Unities at St. Moritz [London Gigs]

5. See Wifey’s first party of 2011 in Dalston with DJ Q + R1 Ryders + Slackk + DJ Total Niceness [Spoonfed]

6. Be entranced by Figure Stuck, Stuck [Lauren Down]

Black Swan

Recommending this film is not the easiest thing to do. You have those who already know and appreciate the prospect of a new Darren Aronofsky film, granted some of those fans fell off at The Fountain, his most personal and ambitious work, before being pulled back in by The Wrestler.

Then you have those yet to be convinced.

Mancini and the Creepers

Here’s the thing: when someone’s music is described as ‘blurring the lines between hip-hop, soul, indie, electronica and jazz’, my heart sinks. Already I’m imagining some god-awful jazz-funk band, bottom of the bill at Womad with enough slap bass to make Mark King of Level 42 blush. So when the blurb to accompany Mancini and The Creepers’ second single ‘Trouble/Gold Sand’ arrived in my inbox, using that very description, I wasn’t expecting much.

Of course, I was completely and utterly wrong. This is a fine slice of UK hip-hop/ soul and I am a facetious bastard. Vocalist Mancini’s delivery is as clear, laid- back and unmistakeably British as Tommy Temper and Frank laws’ production is satisfyingly crisp and thumping. It is – as a young person might say – ‘phat’. Both tracks are available to download via Bandcamp.

Mancini and the Creepers – Gold Sand by snipelondon

Mancini and the Creepers – Trouble by snipelondon

Rupertstiltskin: How Murdoch's Sky got the folklore vote

Sky and BT are having a bit of a ding dong over advertising just now, and here’s a little snippet of just how adult everyone is being about it. An adjudication from the Advertising Standards Authority contains the following fascinating passage, with the crucial few words highlighted in bold.

“Sky said they had run ads based on fairy tales for some time and supplied examples…They said the “trip, trap” phrase was an integral part of the Three Billy Goats Gruff fairy tale. They supplied notes from a specialist in fairy tales and folklore regarding the origin and meaning of the “trip, trap” phrase, which they believed showed it did not carry any connotation of dishonesty or being tripped into a trap.”

So now you know – the folklorists are firmly on Uncle Rupert’s side. Indeed, if the Brothers Grim were alive today they’d probably be signed up to the full Sky package (including Sky Sports 2, Sky Movies and HD), while Hans Christian Andersen would be writing freelance for Dear Deirdre’s photo casebook.

Amazon just bought LoveFilm

Amazon just bought the 58% of LoveFilm that it did not already own.