Snipe Top 5: Autumn porridge recipes

Porridge is the finest of all autumn breakfasts, mixing the nourishing goodness of soup with the sweet, sweet taste of dessert. It’s also very cheap, and just because it needs a pan or a microwave doesn’t mean it takes ages to make. Not convinced? Here are five great recipes that will bring out your inner Goldilocks.

Basic Scottish Porridge
This recipe is on an American website which refers to “Scottish” porridge as if it were some sort of highland delicacy eaten only by the residents of mist-shrouded isles in the middle of mystical lochs. The recipe is dead simple, and included here primarily because it refers to a spurtle, the traditional stirring device for a good Scottish porridge. Snipe just loves the word spurtle, and we shall be whittling our own spurtle just as soon as we happen upon a suitable log for spurtling with.

Nordic Beer Porridge
Doubtless this is disgusting, but it appears to be a socially acceptable way of starting the day with booze – sort of like putting whiskey on your cornflakes but with added slow release oaty goodness. The recipe suggests “light or alcohol free beer”. A can of Red Stripe counts as “light alcohol”, right?

Jamie Oliver’s Porridge
Jamie is great. So what if his stateside show is a bit overproduced and format heavy, so what if his days as the bright young thing of British TV cookery are over and his mockney patois has worn a bit thin. He’s nice, and his food always looks lovely. This is no exception.

Sick Looking Rhubarb and Apple Porridge
Snipe’s favourite non-boozy porridge on this list. Our cockles are tingling (with warmth) just looking at it. The recipe calls for the soaking of oats in water and the adding of flaxseeds and pepitas. Snipe couldn’t be arsed with all that so we just made normal porridge then added the fruit. It was really, really good.

Sweet Subcontinental Raisin Porridge
No Top 5 list is complete without a left field shout, and cardamom in a breakfast fills that requirement nicely. So stick your spurtle into this one and let us know how it goes.

London agenda for Thursday 14 October

London agenda for Thursday 14 October
1. Shrag, Peepholes, Town Bike at the Lex [London Gigs]
2. Walter Lure, Johnny Throttle, Electrajet at the 100 Club [London Gigs]
3. Coast over to the Bicycle Film Festival [Le Cool]
4. Watch as a Dalston townhouse is turned into an art hotel [Le Cool]
5. Celebrate ten years of the East London Photography Festival [Run Riot]
6. Eat chocolate at Charbonnel et Walker [Tired of London]

Jai Paul

Confirmed, official details are few and far between with this guy, but here’s what we know: Jai Paul is twenty-one years of age, comes from North-West London and has been courted by XL Recordings. He might have an EP out at the end of the year, he might just have been conceived backstage at one of Prince’s London shows of the Lovesexy World Tour in 1988 and he might be the little brother of the speccy one from Hot Chip. (These last two things might not be 100% truth serum, BUT IT WOULD EXPLAIN A LOT)

Observe:

Jai Paul – BTSTU by snipelondon

'Buddies' shower a stranger on the street with a hilariously over-the-top birthday wish

When you think about it, banks have been met with a very sad fate in our modern society. They aren’t supposed to be the economy ruining, bonus loving behemoths they’ve become. At their essence, they’re actually a pretty great thing. They give us a safe place to keep our money, they pay us for the privilege of keeping our money safe, and they also make it easy to use out money whenever we want. And sometimes, when we need a bit of extra money to do something awesome, they let us have some for a relatively small fee. If only they’d stuck to the basics and not the bonuses, right?!

Enter First Direct, a bank that is taking banking back to its roots, and putting the emphasis back on me and you — the people keeping it in business. They seem to understand the skepticism the general public has towards their profession as of late, and, as is evidenced in the above video, they’re pulling out all the stops to prove that they’re a different kind of bank.

At the core of this clip, in which a crew of First Direct “buddies” shower a stranger on the street with a hilariously over-the-top birthday wish, is the message that when you do nice things for people, life is just better. You put a smile on a stranger’s face, and you make their day. And really, it looks like they’re doing this to some random stranger! It’s no wonder they’re the most recommended bank in the UK. Because if they’re willing to do this for some guy on the street, you can only imagine what lengths they’re willing to go for their customers.

Snipe Top 5: Arty London churches

“I wonder who will be the last, the very last, to seek / this place for what it was…” wrote Philip Larkin in Church Going. Well, many London churches are finding contemporary art exhibitions a good way to reassert their relevance in this empty godless husk of a world. Here are five of the best.

Westbourne Grove Church
Dedicated art space in Notting Hill. In particular look out for Owen Roseblade’s forthcoming London Safari show, which remixes photographs of London landmarks into really cool looking animals. Looks well worth checking out. From October 28th.

St John on Bethnal Green
Snipe visited St John’s back in April when we were still in short trousers. The belfry then was host to a beautiful installation – the architecture really does help focus the mind on the exhibit. This church is really excellent at coming up with new and varied events, from films to intriguing stone carving and mosaic lessons, and if you’re local it’s well worth checking out regularly to see what’s going down.

Wallspace
All Hallows Church in London Wall has been home to this sensitively curated exhibition space since 2006. Looks like a good one coming up from 13th October: the best art commissions from churches and cathedrals around the country, including work by Tracy Emin and Henry Moore.

The Crypt of St Pancras Parish Church
Snipe hasn’t been here, but the space looks great. Crypts are cool. They remind us of Poe and gothic horror in a very agreeable way. Current exhibitions look a little meh from the website, but that might be unfair. If you go along and disagree let us know in the comments.

St Luke and Christ Church, Chelsea
Another interesting looking exhibition coming up here, specially commissioned by the Rector. Richard Bagguley caused a bit of a stir earlier this year with The Crucifixion at Oxford Circus, which did exactly what it says on the tin. If nothing else it engaged modern atheistic minds with their christian heritage, and the church is giving him space to follow up from 29th Oct.

London agenda for Wednesday 13 October

London agenda for Wednesday 13 October
1. See the Mice Parade [Snipe]
2. Be blown away by Interactive Architecture 2010 [Le Cool]
3. Become the last one standing at Literary Death Match 100 [Run Riot]
4. View brilliant art at Shoreditch Town Hall at the The Future Can Wait 2010 [Spoonfed]
5. Learn about Duck Island [Tired of London]

The End Times: Video of Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly, Hipster symposium, Why does it take so long to mend an escalator?

The End Times
1. Why does it take so long to mend an escalator? [LRB]
2. What do hipsters and pornography have in common? [LA Times]
3. Eric Stoltz as the original Marty McFly [Hollywood Reporter]

Rugby great Ben Cohen makes a video for Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project

In this clip England and Sale Sharks rugby player Ben Cohen expresses his feelings about young people being bullied due to their sexuality.

First week on the job for London’s homeless tour guides

Who better to show visitors to the capital around than those who call its streets home?

‘Unseen tours’ is a scheme run by grassroots volunteer organization The Sock Mob. Launched on the 10th October, the aim is to provide homeless people with sustainable work as tour guides.

Sock Mob Events, the social enterprise arm of the organization, operates walks five days a week. According to the website, they offer a ‘historical but also unexplored perspective on the city’. Trained homeless guides attempt to ‘interweave’ personal stories and experiences.

There’s a choice of two routes – London Bridge and Borough or Shoreditch. Each walk costs £5/8 and concludes with a trip to a local pub. The majority of the money goes to the guides themselves.

The idea for Unseen Tours was borne out of The Sock Mob’s regular walks around London. Members of the 400-strong group can often be seen engaging the city’s rough sleepers. They’re propensity for handing out socks as an icebreaker led to the name.

Sock Mob Events was set up ‘to harness the energy and the knowledge’ of homeless people. According to the blurb, it ‘exists today so that one day our homeless guides can take over the enterprise’. They feel bringing people from different walks of life together helps to de-stigmatize marginalized groups.

The scheme was first piloted for the London Fringe Festival in July and received a wealth of publicity. A similar scheme exists in Holland.

www.sockmobevents.org.uk
www.meetup.com/thesockmob
www.londonfestivalfringe.com

Running your own sperm bank in the basement is illegal, it turns out

Two men are in Southwark court today after being prosecuted under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Nigel Woodforth and Ricky Gage ran an illegal sperm bank from Woodforth’s basement, servicing nearly 800 women.

Melissa Bhalla-Pentley told the Indy that she “paid the men an £80 joining fee and a further £300, the cost of using the service for each menstrual cycle. She then had to pay a courier company £150 for each delivery of sperm, £50 of which would be given to the sperm donor. A box, wrapped in grey polythene and containing a pot of sperm and a 10ml syringe, was delivered to her home late one night.”

The service claimed a 37% success rate.

Two face jail over illegal sperm company [Independent]