Films opening today in London - 5 November 2010
Another Year
Due Date [Review]
FIT
Jackass 3D
Let Me In [Review]
Mammoth
05 Nov 2010
Due Date
Everyone’s got one: the type of friend who fate threw you together with and now you just can’t seem to drop. Can’t think who it is? Then it’s probably you. Or you have no friends. In either case, you’ll probably have sympathy for Robert Downey Junior’s character in ‘new’ comedy Due Date.
05 Nov 2010
Best of the week's Top 5s
This week it started being dark before we’d left work. Grim. But you know some things that aren’t grim? Cigarette-making giant cats, Sheheradaze nights, S shaped migration patterns and mugs of tea in gothic churches. All of these and more were featured in this week’s Top 5s.
London’s art deco delights
Best upcoming events at a bookshop near you
Why getting to work in a tube strike ain’t so bad
Do you like music? Are you poor? Click me
05 Nov 2010
London agenda for Friday 5 November
1. Remember, remember, the 5th of November. Bonfire nights around London [Londonist]
2. Celebrate 10 years of activism at Girl Fawkes – A Ladyfest Ten Celebration [Le Cool]
3. Get ready for our close-up at Flashing Bodies Action Five at The Cinema Museum [Run Riot]
4. Nice up with Shepdog + The Nextmen at the Jazz Cafe [Spoonfed]
5. Watch free fireworks on Wanstead Flats [Tired of London]
05 Nov 2010
Arcane Roots
We don’t post much metal stuff on here, for some reason. But we like plenty, and this rules. Some massive production, pleasingly technical playing, and Patton-ish (Mike, not General George) vocals combine into… a video we wanted to post. Raargh!
04 Nov 2010
Free Music Events in London
With us all becoming slowly more impoverished what with it getting to the Christmas present buying time of the year and wacking the heating up a notch or two, Snipe thought to share some of the best regular free music events across the capital to keep us all merry.
1. Daylight Music @ Union Chapel – Saturdays at 12 midday
Union Chapel sure put on a host of amazing music, film and comedy in the evenings but Daylight Music does just what it says on the tin by providing a free dose of Saturday soundtracks to those of us determined enough to get out of bed before midday. So blitz away that Friday night hangover with a mug of tea and a musical affair at Islington’s Gothic church. Arctic Circle are producing the line-up of artists ranging from ambient sound art to psych-folk and post-rock. There couldn’t be anything more cosy to do on a blustery Saturday.
2. Mind the Gap @ Carnivale – Saturdays, Monthly
Keen to catch the latest homegrown talent? Mind the Gap’s gigs are culturally and artistically diverse and held at a fab venue in Aldgate – all the events Carnivale hosts are free infact! Run by a friendly bunch and organised by the young people of East London the scheme aims to build the creative core of London’s community by getting the young involved in putting on events.
3. Instores @ Rough Trade East, Weekday Evenings
Of course this would be on here, and obvious it may be, but surely a Rough Trade instore is something all Londoners must tick off their to-do lists. The fact that they’re hugely popular goes without saying; as does the fact that you need to get there sharpish to get in – it is little hassle for a free event. Plus; after an evening of free music you won’t feel so guilty when you proceed to spend £50 on albums and coffee post-performance.
4. Rota @ Notting Hill Arts Club – 4-8pm Saturdays, Weekly
I can’t mention these instores without mentioning the outstores. Independently organised and supporting young local record labels, music sites and club nights, they provide a homely, amiable atmosphere. The happy hour drinks help too.
5. The Station Sessions @ St. Pancras, Weekly
Free music in strange places. Once a week for an hour over the summer St Pancras offered musicians a platform (quite literally) for which to entertain commuters and convince us all that getting on that crowded train at 6pm was too much like hard work. A vast array of performers is promised to return for the third season. Good acoustics too!
04 Nov 2010
Vessels Gig Changes Venue
This show, as previewed in the latest Snipe, has moved from The Black Heart to The Queen Of Hoxton.
The Queen of Hoxton | 1 Curtain Road, EC2A 3LT
Vessels make post-rock interesting again. Theirs isn’t the kind of by-the-numbers band that plagues the genre; it’s altogether farther reaching. It’s an epic, swirling soundscape filled with emotional rancour. Debut long player White Fields and Open Devices found them crafting a niche somewhere between the environmental echoes of Sigur Rós and the hardcore riff attack of Oceansize. There are also elements of Battles in their twinkling riffs and shifting time signatures, but again, it’s a sound Vessels make their own by shifting the influences around. Live is the environment to truly enjoy their sound as it allows their harder edge to come to the fore and their technical mastery to become blazingly apparent.
04 Nov 2010
London agenda for Thursday 4 November
1. Electro-pop with amazing duo Hundred in the Hands [John Rogers]
2. Travel to 1960 with the first three episode of Coronation Street at the BFI [Le Cool]
3. Relax in the Pembury Tavern [Tired of London]
4. Watch the Malcolm Hardy Awards for most original UK comedian [Spoonfed]
04 Nov 2010
No Sir! There's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified, cable-car!
Vertigo sufferers beware. Seen that episode of The Simpsons where monorail fever grips the city of Springfield?
Well, our very own Mayor Quimby, Boris Johnson, is hoping something similar will grip east and south-east London. Except it won’t be “MONORAIL!” we’ll be singing – it’ll be “CABLE CAR!”
Planning documents have just been submitted for the project, which is due to link the O2 at Greenwich with the ExCel centre at the Royal Docks.
It’s not the first time somebody’s tried to do it – a similar scheme was binned in 1998 after a row between its private backers and the operators of the under-construction Millennium Dome.
Four years ago, the O2’s owners wanted to build one to Canary Wharf, only for that idea to be dropped when it was realised passengers would be able to peer into penthouse flats on the Isle of Dogs.
But although it will undoubtedly offer great views of the capital and become a tourist attraction in its own right, the plan has met with bemusement among the people who are expected to use it. The road network south of the river is notoriously clogged up, with most people agreeing Something Must Be Done to clear the Blackwall Tunnel bottleneck – whether with new public transport projects, new road crossings, or both.
Pretty as a cable car might be, it’s not going to do much to clear those traffic jams or ease the congested Jubilee Line, although once Crossrail comes it could provide a handy link for North Greenwich.
But with little cash in the pot and TfL hoping to raise funds for the scheme with private finance, it might be the best frustrated river crossers will see for some years.
The historical precedents for the Greenwich cable car aren’t encouraging – but there’s no sign of a Marge Simpson waiting to object. Both Greenwich and Newham councils keen on the project, it’s likely to be given the go-ahead.
If the cash can be found, the cable car could end up one of Mayor Johnson’s legacies to London. Like the “Boris bikes”, the cable car will be nice to have – but it won’t be an answer to our pressing transport problems.
03 Nov 2010
Epic journeys to compare with a tube strike commute
How was this morning’s tube stricken journey for you then? Evil? Easy? An elegant variation? However bad it got, let’s try to accentuate the positives. Here are five trips from the past which might help lend a smidgeon of perspective.
Shackleton’s Antarctic folly
“MEN WANTED: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success. Sir Ernest Shackleton.” Thus read the advert put out for men to sail on the Endurance. How did it go? Sample quote from a crew member: “We shall have to eat the one who dies first”. Yikes. Did it get that bad on this morning’s Overground?
Pregnant donkey trotting
Now, no version of the bible actually mentions a donkey being involved in this journey (c haow Look ignoors it heer). But the bible doesn’t mention a lot of things, and everyone knows deep in their heart that Mary and Joseph rode a donkey right up to the stable door, and Mary must have been 8 months pregnant for most of the way. Does that sound fun to you? And did I mention that the road was really, really dusty? Must have been hell. It’s surprising their relationship survived it, frankly.
Deserted for turkey
Great story from last Christmas of the couple separated when the wife popped out for a Christmas turkey, only to be snowed out for a whole month. On the plus side, they lived in a lighthouse which is ineffably cool. Relevant quote to apply to our own piffling discomforts today: “It’s just one of those things which happen. There’s not a lot we can do about it. We just need to sit it out.” Well quite. Stiff upper lip and a jolly good show.
Arctic Tern
This little critter migrates anually from Greenland to the Antarctic and back again, and goes in an S shape rather than the shortest route. Think of this bird as living in Barking and working in Ealing, and deliberately choosing the slowest conceivable commute, one that involves changing from the DLR at Bank. That’s how insane it is.
The 10 day traffic jam
A reminder that while tube strikes make us suffer, we do not suffer alone. Whereas nothing beats the exquisite, solitary misery of the traffic-snared driver. Stick together tubies, it could be so much worse.
03 Nov 2010
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- 9 poems about London: one for each of your moods
- Hope and despair in Woolwich town centre
- Silencing the Brick Lane curry touts could be fatal for the city's self-esteem
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
- Random Interview: Eileen Conn, co-ordinator of Peckham Vision
- Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
- A unique collection of photos of Edwardian Londoners
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
- Diary of the shy Londoner
© 2009-2025 Snipe London.