This video takes us inside the late-night juggling subculture of Camden Town
Yep, there’s a late-night juggling subculture of Camden Town. Vimeo user pyrishoya has a lovely little film about it. Juggling, it turns out, is a great way of chilling out. One juggler likens juggling to meditation. These jugglers are no clowns. They are men and women at peace.
As an aside, they seem to include a disproportionate number of computer programmers. I don’t know what that says. One of these programmers says he commutes to work on a unicycle.
keep your balls up in the air from pyrishoya on Vimeo.
16 Oct 2012
A Jamaican patois bible has been launched in London. Here's the Lord's prayer
“Faada, mek piiple av nof rispek fi yu an yu niem,
Mek di taim kom wen yu ruul iina evri wie.
Evridie gi wi di fuud we wi niid
Paadn wi fi aal a di rang we wi du,
kaa wi paadn piiple we du wi rang tu.
An no mek wi fies notn we wi kaaz wi fi sin.”
Last week (Oct 9) a controversial, long awaited Jamaican patois translation of the bible was launched at the Jamaican High Commission in London. Critics have questioned the value of the project, which has taken 10 years to complete, at a time when Jamaican policy increasingly encourages Standard English to be taught as the island’s first language.
The Jamaica Information Service reports:
“Reverend Stewart, who is promoting the translation in the UK, said it was a bit like ‘colonisation in reverse’. He noted that the Jamaican language came out of the country’s British colonial experience, and that the patois translation was done by Jamaicans for Jamaicans in “our own language”.”
Notwithstanding that it doesn’t matter in the slightest what English white men think about this project, I think that it’s great.
Background on the controversy surrounding the project can be found it this BBC report.
Text of the translation comes via The Voice.
15 Oct 2012
Remember when Boris opposed hospital closures?
The above video is of Boris Johnson taking to the streets to oppose the closure of Queen Mary’s accident and emergency unit in Sidcup, back in 2008.
He explains that:
“If people don’t have a sense that there is a local A+E where they can go to if they crack their head on a pavement or if they suffer some other emergency then that reduces their sense of security… People need to feel that their local service is going to be there if something untoward happens to them… it is absolutely vital.”
He went on to promise to fight all hospital closure, explaining in his manifesto that
“London’s hospitals, from St. Mary’s at Sidcup to Chase Farm at Enfield, are already witnessing key services such as Accident & Emergency units under threat, and further cuts are looming… Reducing access could increase waiting times further, which is not acceptable. I want to see full Accident & Emergency services across London. Those extra minutes in an ambulance could mean the difference between life and death.”
Of course that was all in the middle of an election campaign, when Labour were in control of these things.
Now this own party are back in power, Boris seems to have lost interest in such matters.
Asked what he had done to prevent the planned closure of Ealing Hospital A+E earlier this year he replied
“The difficulty I have with hospital configurations in London is that I do not have direct responsibility for them.. I have to say I campaigned a lot in Ealing and it was not raised with me, so it was not something that people brought to me. So your question to me today is really the first time this has been escalated to me.”
He explained that:
“The argument that has been put to me by clinicians, by the strategic Health Authority, has been that reorganisation is essential if you are going to drive up standards of care. I have to be mindful of that case.”
Last year he also refused to lobby the government- against the planned closure of another accident and emergency unit in Redbridge.
Today the Evening Standard report that Ealing, Hammersmith, Charing Cross and Central Middlesex are all to lose their accident and emergency units, despite vigorous local campaigns against the closures.
I have asked City Hall whether the Mayor plans to fulfill his manifesto commitments and join the campaigns against these closures.
So far I’ve had no reply.
15 Oct 2012
Wrapped Ears #1
Here’s a brief roundup of MP3s that I’ve enjoyed this week, to be done weekly from now on.
No Ceremony/// (starting off a punctuation theme with band names this week) make moody dancefloor anthems that weave in elements of piano-house, post-dubstep pop a la Poliça, and Fischerspooner-ish pulsing electroclash. Their latest single FEELSOLOW is available as a free download, ahead of an “official” November release.
Finnish sisters LCMDF are back with a bang, following up their debut album Love & Nature with a trickle of knowingly 90s-influenced pop tracks from a forthcoming EP, Mental Health. Expect to hear references to everything from Utah Saints to Suzanne Vega to Dee-Lite to Cypress Hill in their effervescent live set.
WHY? are one of the finest bands currently operating. The brainchild of Oakland-born singer, rapper and multi-instrumentalist Yoni Wolf, they mix his wonky flow of introspective autobiographical hip-hop with intricate Phillip Glass style micro-melodies and anthemic choruses. New album Mumps Etc is out now.
Blacks& are a sunny LA alt-pop four-piece recalling everything from Vampire Weekend to Future Islands to The Beach Boys to… Hanson. Their debut single is out October 22nd on the new Hey Moon label.
MPfree editor Tom Jenkins has featured this one before, but it bears repeating as it’s out this week. Dad Rocks!, aka Snævar Albertsson, was so impressed with a mashup of several of his tracks posted on Soundcloud by unknown producer 6001 Hulls that he commissioned an entire EP. The results are euphoric glitch-pop versions of Dad Rocks!’ beautiful modern folk melodies, entitled AC!D DORKS.
Finally, check out the new video from Manchester all-grrrrl lo-fi band PINS (pictured), recently signed to Bella Union.
PINS – SAY TO ME from PINS on Vimeo.
11 Oct 2012
Yoro Diallo by Egyptian Hip Hop
Check out this totally psych vid from Manchester’s Egyptian Hip Hop, a kind of 60s pastiche which looks as if it could’ve been filmed in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park circa ’67 (it’s probably Runcorn). Alarmingly, the large pipe at the beginning brings to mind the storm drain entrance to Pennywise’s lair in terrifying clown-horror TV flick, It. London fans should float on down (‘they all float down here Richie …’) to Corsica studios tonight to catch them live; clown suits optional.
11 Oct 2012
Boris Johnson tells taxi drivers to jump off Tower Bridge
There wasn’t a great deal new in Boris Johnson’s conference speech today.
His old joke about selling cake to France was wheeled out for the umpteenth time as was his antique spiel about saving London from Chateauneuf du Pape swilling, semi-reformed Marxists.
There was one addition to his stump speech however which I’m amazed hasn’t been picked up elsewhere.
Talking about taxi drivers who protested over Olympic lane restrictions, he said:
“The taxi drivers were blockading the West End. One of them actually handed the keys of his cab to a police guy and jumped off Tower Bridge. I wish some of the others could have done the same frankly but never mind.”
For a Mayor of London to call for taxi drivers to throw themselves off a bridge is pretty remarkable.
Especially considering how badly relations between City Hall and many cabbies have deteriorated in recent years.
When Labour’s mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone cracked a joke about hanging bankers during the election campaign all hell broke loose.
Yet when the current Mayor of London tells cabbies to throw themselves off a bridge, it’s barely even reported.
The press often talk about Boris “getting away with murder” as if it’s a natural law, rather than a direct result of them letting him get away with it.
His drown-a-cabbie comments are just one small but telling example.
09 Oct 2012
Snipe Likes: Someone Needs a Ritual by Torches
To the casual observer it may seem as though some of us here at Snipe are guilty of supplementing our meagre incomes with fortnightly bungs from London’s Torches, so frequently do Charlie Drinkwater and co. appear on our pages. However, if these stylish gloom-poppers continue to churn out dramatic, fist-clenching indie anthems like the track below, it’s nothing less than our duty to bring it to your attention. Someone Needs a Ritual, their second single, is out November 5 on Heart Throb Records. Catch them tonight at White Heat, at Madame Jo Jo’s.
09 Oct 2012
08 Oct 2012
(This is Why) I Can't Wear White by Flock of Dimes
It’s great when a song starts inauspiciously and you’re just about to press the stop button and then a huge, spine-tingling chorus comes along and it’s the best song you’ve heard for ages and it restores your faith in the human race and art and … you get the picture. Flock of Dimes, brought to you by Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner, are releasing a series of limited edition 7” singles via French Kiss, the third and final of which is streaming below. Buy it physically November 20.
08 Oct 2012
Boris Johnson ditches driverless trains pledge
Boris Johnson has ditched his pledge to introduce driverless trains on London Underground “within a decade” after Tube unions threatened to strike over the issue.
Tests on driverless trains had been due to start on the Jubilee Line this month, but have been abandoned following “safety concerns.”
London Underground Managing Director Mike Brown said today:
“let me be clear – there are no plans to test driverless trains on any part of the network.”
Boris Johnson’s pledge to introduce driverless trains was the central plank of his transport manifesto.
He promised that:
“Londoners should no longer be held to ransom by union barons. I will pave the way to the first driverless trains within a decade.”
His pledge was abandoned just one week after “union baron” Bob Crow balloted RMT members for a strike on the issue.
Bob Crow today described the climbdown as a “massive victory” for the RMT.
In Boris Johnson’s transport manifesto he promised that
“Under my leadership, TfL will rapidly establish a timetable for introducing the first driverless trains to become operational on the LU within a decade… it is time to invest in new technology for London”
According to the Standard this pledge has been pushed back “well into the 2020s” with London Underground only saying that trains “could” be made driverless at that time.
08 Oct 2012
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- Punk brewery just as sexist and homophobic as the industry they rail against
- Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
- The best church names in London, and where they come from
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
- A unique collection of photos of Edwardian Londoners
- Number of people using Thames cable car plunges
- Diary of the shy Londoner
- Could red kites be London's next big nature success story?
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- Nice Interactive timeline lets you follow Londoners' historic fight against racism
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