Promotional video showing off new Routemaster design
It’s a nice touch having windows down the side of the stairwells. Details here (Via Ian Visits )
There doesn’t seem to be much left that’s Routemasterish about it.
Where’s the distinctive front cab, or the open platform (now a door)?
Why no single entrance, or single staircase?
It’s just a standard double decker plus an extra door, extra staircase, and an extra member of staff.
17 May 2010
The continuing war against terrorism (or rather photographers)
Under a new Metropolitan Police initiative, Project Griffin various police forces, including the Met and the City of London, are now encouraging “individuals or groups responsible for the safety and security of buildings, businesses, districts or neighbourhoods” to “deter, detect and counter terrorist activity and crime.”
On the face of it this is an admirable aim that we should all support. However when the product is, in effect, non-police officer types harassing genuine photographers, you have to question whether this is truly about terrorism or just an excuse for police officer wannabes (who may on occasion be working as security guards) to exert and abuse their authority.)
Sadly this how now reached the point where a photographer, when telling a Police Community Support Officer that she was taking the photos for fun, was told flatly, “You’re filming for fun? I don’t believe you.” The photographer in question was then, moments later arrested, held in a cell for several hours and then fined for causing harassment, alarm and distress in a public place.
The charge levelled at her for the seemingly innocent activity of taking photographs, does ask the question, what other innocent activities might provoke alarm and and distress in a public place. Would kicking a ball for example be interpreted as an attempt to trigger an explosive device?
This kind of perverse manipulation of the law is not unique to London police officers, or to Britain itself, but it would be nice if we could, just for once, get to a point where the law was used to protect us rather than to control us.
17 May 2010
Airswimming and Daniel Deronda
In ancient times a woman’s uterus, if left unmoistened, might wander freely about her body poking curiously at her other organs. Left uncorrected it could climb up inside her chest and strangle her. Or a woman’s problems might stem from devils, or thinking too much. Reading. Wearing trousers. Science is tricky. Over the centuries, as male physicians got better at diagnosing “female troubles” like hysteria or… well, hysteria pretty much covered everything, it was decided women just needed to start having more sex with men. Otherwise, patients incarcerated in mental hospitals for durations as arbitrary as everything else might have their genitals massaged using high-powered water hoses until they attained Hysterical Paroxysm.
15 May 2010
DIARY: Will Vaughan
Set the Controls to the Heart of Zone 5
Hello. My name’s Will Vaughan and I’m a conceptual artist. My latest piece spanned nearly three decades and saw me take on the role of an overweight white male Londoner, going to school, church and Cornwall, and gaining a 2:1 at a former Poly before playing in some 17000 bands of varying quality.
Before this, my work was primarily concerned with being adorable, soiling myself and “Go-ee Watch Cartoo’”.
This is my diary.
EFTERKLANG played last Wednesday, and it was one of those rare sets: a band having to work their true blooming hardest to turn something that could’ve been another Wednesday night in that meh venue in that meh postcode into something unique.
OHHHHH SHIIIIIIIT I’ve also been listening to YUCK all week. They’ve written the song of the year, they look like the only four members of their own vertebrate genus and they’re smashing.
I also ruined a workday staying up until Milkman o’ Clock watching the 1972 documentary We Was All One which features candid interviews with the people of Bermondsey. People such as ex-welterweight boxer Joe Rolfe, who reflects on living on a penny-packet of cocoa between meager tournament and dockyard paychecks.
A rich remnant from its own era, this is a story of a time which was then a distant memory, and now all but abstract history. Seeing and hearing about it in full colour and from those who were actually there is a pretty special experience.
Sunday saw me speeding into the end of the 20th Century with my first episode of The West Wing. It’s brill. Expect my predictions for the 2006 World Cup and at least one “Whassssuuuup” in the near future.
By Will Vaughn
aka Stairs To Korea – www.stairstokorea.com
15 May 2010
Anaïs Mitchell is creating her own mythology
“There are only so many stories in the world,” says Anaïs Mitchell of Hadestown, her folk opera about Orpheus and Eurydice. “Artists tap into echoes that have been reverberating in the rabbit hole of human existence since before we can remember. We think we’re coming up with this shit from scratch, but it’s not true!”
Mitchell has indirectly written her own folk story within the tale she set out to tell, in which the creation of an ambitious project spawned a heartening yarn of community-tended grassroots. Cut off from the rest of the country by the weather and a lack of television, the Vermont street where the record took shape is one of allotments, chickens and mucking in with community projects.
15 May 2010
Drum Eyes reinvents the Wall of Sound
Brighton-based collective Drum Eyes have been a long time in their convoluted making. Formed in 2007, even Osaka-born band mainstay Shige Ishihara has trouble keeping count of his band-mates. “We’ve changed members quite a few times,” he explains. “At the moment we have eight…”
The result is a monolithic live band, propelled forwards by the two drummers with their twin kits staring out from the front of the stage. Dark, jagged jazz is pushed through unravelling structures; pulsing krautrock tumbles with climactic improvisation. Keyboards and guitar coil around throbbing bass, underscored by celebratory, evolving rhythm. But while Ishigura wears the band’s krautrock influence on his sleeve, he wants Drum Eyes to stay free from pigeonholing. “I don’t like to be categorized,” he says. “I don’t want to make music for scenes. I’d like to make music as music.”
15 May 2010
336 Hours
YEASAYER » 26 May 2010
KoKo | 1a Camden High Street NW1 7JE
Yeasayer’s “Odd Blood” was a welcome new year curveball of a record, bewitching bloggers and broadsheets alike. It has drawn comparison to Animal Collective’s “Merriweather Post Pavillion” in early 2010, in that it’s a breakthrough album for an indie band with a growing cult status, catching the popular imagination with it’s catchy tunes and sharp pop production that feels both classic and contemporary. The heightened attention culminates in Yeasayer’s biggest UK headline show to date at Camden’s palatial Koko on May 26th. Expect a celebratory atmosphere, a smattering of stage-side celebs, and a scramble for ticket returns on the steps of the venue. John Rogers
THE KISSAWAY TRAIL » 27 May 2010
Cargo | 83 Rivington Street EC2A 3AY
When Bella Union sign a new band, we sit up and take notice. Run by producer and former Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde, this almost religiously revered indie label has brought us incredible music in recent years from overseas acts like Beach House, The Acorn, Peter Broderick and Fleet Foxes. Danish indie rockers The Kissaway Trail are one of the label’s latest acquisitions. Touching on the euphoric emotion of early Arcade Fire and the distinctly Scandinavian tunes of bands like The Notwist, they’ll be playing songs from their recently released second studio album “Sleep Mountain” at Cargo on May 27th as part of a whistle-stop European tour. John Rogers
STAG & DAGGER » 21 May 2010
Various Venues
Shoreditch will once again become a frantic melee this May 21st as five thousand gig goers take to the narrow streets in search of the hottest bands and the best parties at this year’s Stag And Dagger all-dayer. With no stage times released as yet it’s hard to pre-plan a route through the chaos, but the many highlights include fast rising Icelandic upstarts FM Belfast at The Hobby Horse, dreamy pop from White Hinterland at the Quietus-curated Macbeth pub, and a Wichita anniversary party at The Old Blue Last; there’s also a miasma of hypnotic sounds at Sonic Cathedral’s Legion event, a Line Of Best Fit party at The Spread Eagle and John + Jehn’s smouldering French indie-rock at CAMP. John Rogers
REAL ESTATE » Tuesday 18 May 2010
Cargo | 83 Rivington Street EC2A 3AY
It’s the perfect time to get involved with some lazy beach jams and surf-pop vibes as Summer starts to show its face in London. New Jersey’s Real Estate are hitting these shores as a result of tireless work from two of the most exciting emerging labels in recent times; Underwater Peoples and Woodsist have released them, as well as the fruits of their many side-projects, and built up various such collectives that now tour and write together. Support comes from Ganglians, who have a more psychedelic pop take on things, and Double Dagger’s punkier but no less joyous sound. Jonathan Fisher
ATP PRESENTS THE CLEAN » Wednesday 19 May 2010
ICA | The Mall SW1Y 5AH
I’ll be honest. Despite owning a copy of Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species, I’ve barely dipped into it in any depth. I love his ideas, but the book is too big and the writing is a bit old fashioned for my liking. One of my favourite parts is about how instead of looking into how giraffes came to have such long necks (dem leaves are high, stupid) he wrote about how their tails had developed into highly efficient fly-swatters. Genius. I’m also really into marsupials. I doubt they could have survived and thrived to such an extent anywhere else but in but Australasia, right? What with there being no bit nasty predators to eat them. Same goes for those weird little kiwi birds. Craig Nunn
TRANSPARENT PRESENTS ACTIVE CHILD » Saturday 22 May 2010
The Hobby Horse | 281 Kingsland Road
This show has moved to CAMP, 70-74 City Road, Old Street, London, EC1Y 2BJ
It seems the London-based duo behind the Transparent Blog and 7” Singles Label can do no wrong at the moment. Whether it be breaking Summer Camp from a diddly MySpace experiment to an overnight blog phenomenon or releasing 7” singles by next-big-things Yuck, Washed Out or Perfume Genius – these guys certainly know their onions. Which is exactly why we urge you to head down to the Transparent night at The Hobby Horse, Hackney Camp, Shoreditch on 22 May. Pat Grossi aka Active Child will bring his chilling lo-fi gospel to the UK for the first time, plus current blog sensation Kisses are behind the decks. Rich Thane
15 May 2010
Get Your Kick at Route 36, Bolivia's first fast-serve cocaine bar
“Take it out of the bag”, one of them whispers, as a small mountain of Bolivian marching powder unfolds from the wrap. Forming peaks where it piles on the surface, the small patch of black bin liner is emptied into the soft light of the room. They lean in; throats dry with a fiendish desire, pushing pure uncut white to and fro with an out-of-date health insurance card from some place far, far behind them now. Racked up with two fat lines sat side-by-side along the blackened edges of a bootlegged copy of Appetite For Destruction, some stranger nearby leans in and assuredly urges: “Don’t use the straw, use this”, as he carefully hands over a softened and tightly rolled 10 Boliviano note. The newcomers eye their bounty, savour a last intake breath as they lurch down, and begin judiciously disappearing it up their snouts, chattering and grunting between disjointed monologues that they might later call conversation.
15 May 2010
Study shows that shared experiences makes us happy, so what is your problem?
Well that was fun, wasn’t it? The last 10 years I mean. As decades go it was pretty… well, decadent. It’s almost as if we’ve spent the time getting pissed on someone else’s tab at an exclusive West End club—somewhere full of smart shoes, unironic blazers and slightly wrinkling cougars decked in pearls. But now the faces have turned to us expectantly, and Clegg and Cameron are muttering darkly about it being our round. Which I suppose it is. To make things worse, some twat has only gone and ordered some 2012 Olympics at £9bn a bottle, although the occasion clearly calls for a few mineral waters and a bag of Nobby’s Nuts.
15 May 2010
Random Interview: Darth Vader, South Bank
It’s a bright and fresh spring morning on the South Bank. Above the murky waters of the Thames a group of people are smearing face paint across their cheeks and setting up their performing stations for the day. A silver wizard readjusts his staff, a golden king is pulling up his britches, “the most pierced lady in the world” is laying out her rug and a man who is about to spend the day dressed up as the ultimate dark lord, Darth Vader, is surveying the sky.
Darth: It gets very hot in my costume, I am thinking of changing it to fabric of some kind instead of this leather. I only started last October so I haven’t been through a summer yet. I love Star Wars like most men my age. He is the biggest villain. People may like or hate him but everybody knows him.
15 May 2010
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- Random Interview: Eileen Conn, co-ordinator of Peckham Vision
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
- The best church names in London, and where they come from
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- 9 poems about London: one for each of your moods
- Punk brewery just as sexist and homophobic as the industry they rail against
- Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
- Summer Camp: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days
- A unique collection of photos of Edwardian Londoners
- Nice map of London's fruit trees shows you where to pick free food
© 2009-2026 Snipe London.