Dead fish in London's river Lea caused by pollution after a storm

Artists impression of a fatberg on the 4th plinth

London home owners, private renters and social renters 1961-2011

Lilo Evans and Tristan Stocks in the Mikado

Chart showing how Londoners get to work across inner and outer London

Chart showing how Londoners get to work by mode, 2011 data

Chart showing how the way Londoners get to work is changing over time

Map of empty homes or second homes in London

London borough population changes 2011-2012

Map of red kite sightings in London, May 2014

Artists impression of the "Teardrop", as seen from Ridley Rd, Dalston

Poster against Chatsworth Rd market in London

Tim Cresswell's poetry collection Soil, published by Penned in the Margins

Yuck! Foie gras breakfast on offer at London's first 24/7 restaurant

London has its first ever 24/7 restaurant, the Duck and Waffle, atop Heron Tower on Bishopsgate. One of its most heavily trailed dishes is an apposite metaphor for everything that’s wrong with everything.

“Breakfast for city workers from 6am to 11am will include Foie Gras ‘All Day Breakfast’” [Via Hot Dinners]

Foie gras on the menu

The following is evidently considered to be a plausible, indeed a desirable start to the day for a London city worker:

Wake up. Climb tower. Eat grotesquely fattened bird liver. Go to work.

Remarkable.

Will Howells’s Grammar School

Grammar mavericks will be comforted to know that he also does an excellent whale impression. Will Howells’s Grammar School (the s’s is deliberate) won’t be in Edinburgh this year, so don’t miss the funniest chance you’ll have all summer to finally get* your head around subject clauses.

02 Aug 2012

Will a new Holiday Inn really "ruin the feel" of Brixton?

A debate is underway over whether turning an empty Woolworths building into a Holiday Inn would spoil Brixton’s character.

Brixton Blog has the news story that plans have been approved by Lambeth council, and pictures of the designs. The planning application is here.

The petition against makes the following case:

“Coldharbour Lane is a mecca of small independent shops and restaurants. It has not yet succumbed to the high street giants like Starbucks and Costa that have invaded Brixton town centre over the past few years. What makes Brixton great is the independent businesses. If Holiday Inn move to Coldharbour Lane, this is the start of the end of this beautiful vibrant and individual street. “

And here’s a discussion forum on urban75 with a sample comment from gabi which makes a lot of sense:

“Can’t quite see the problem with this other than the lack of consultation. Can’t see who’s going to lose out here.”

Don’t know about you, but I find it difficult to argue with finding a use for an empty building. Getting more people and more money into an area, and some use out of its empty buildings, must surely be a good thing. Mustn’t it?

01 Aug 2012

Animal Collective - Today's Supernatural

Here’s a taster from Animal Collective’s forthcoming new album. It’s promisingly upbeat, broken-down psych-pop. Cool.

01 Aug 2012

Sandra Kolstad - The Well

We’re pretty picky pop-pickers here at Snipe, but we’re suckers for a big heart, a big voice, and a big tune. Norway’s Sandra Kolstad synthesises this holy trinity to perfection on her new song “The Well”, streaming below. In a landscape crowded with electro-girls, Kolstad stands tall – her music teems with positivity, energy and spirit. Within the legions of new artists claiming Björk and Kate Bush influences, only one or two actually seem to carry that joyful, creative seed in their music, and Sandra Kolstad is one of them.

Watch out for a new album in 2012.

01 Aug 2012

Do we need to talk about East London's drinking problem?

Margot Huysman, writing for tech blog Kernel Mag, has a common problem. She’s in East London and she keeps getting pissed.

“Since I arrived on the start-up scene, my liver hasn’t had a moment of rest. Networking events, after-work cocktails, office parties… you name it, I’ve been invited to it – and got riotously drunk at it, along with everyone else. But why is London’s Silicon Roundabout so completely fuelled by alcohol?”

Her answer:

“But more than just taking the edge off work, alcohol is there to take the edge off, end of. It’s easy to forget, but the tech scene is populated by smart… nerds… And, just as you may have thought at university that alcohol would take the edge off approaching your crush, or simply help you to interact more fluently with a group of new people, the tech scene turns enthusiastically to alcohol as social lubricant.”

But this isn’t solely a nerd thing. Hard as it is to believe, attractive and articulate people get drunk too.

Do we need an intervention here? Does the constant peer pressure to join in the drinking get you down, creating inside you an empty pit of self-loathing which, with poetic inevitability, you turn to alcohol to fill?

Or should we just relax, order another round and enjoy the ride?

Kernel Mag – Why is East London so goddam booz?y

Olympics? Pish. Go Camden Fringe!

Olympics? Where? Haven’t noticed. Anyway, more importantly, the Camden Fringe Festival is on again, with around 120 shows crammed into fourteen venues over four weeks.

This year’s festival launch party was teeming with fresh faces. I see from the programme that Not The Adventures of Moleman is back. Please ignore my rave review from 2011 that they have printed in the programme to embarrass me, but know that last year’s show was very funny. Miranda Kane’s Coin-Operated Girl had considerable buzz amongst the performers themselves, which is usually a good sign.

The Cabaret of Pottiness, last year’s five-way train wreck between Confusion, Delusion, Desperation, Unpreparedness, and the Goblins of Moria is also back. Actually, I’m going to recommend this one, simply because they are sweethearts and I have no doubt they have overhauled their show 100%. Also, the roof fell in on them last year and that kind of performance karma can pay off in a sympathetic universe.

A long chat with Dynamic Duo about their show Familiaris, in which two estranged sisters try to find their way back to a relationship sounds promising. Sarah Campbell (a HIGNFY writer) is staging Experiments in Fun, which I intend to catch. I’m going to push Gap Year as well because it is produced by Slow Loris Productions, and slow lorises are adorable. The Princess Beatrices of the Animal Kingdom, but with fewer tiaras.

The closest I have to dead-cert-don’t-misses would be Robin Ince is In and Out of His Mind and Leisa Rea: Bastard Legs & Other Shows I Haven’t Written. These folks won’t let you down. Book right now.

I am currently baking myself purple on a sunchair in the Okanagan of British Columbia, swilling crappy American beer until I can slide, numb, into the outdoor jacuzzi. I don’t feel I need to explain my reasons why I’m here instead of London, but I did mention the Olympics in the first paragraph. When I get back on 4 August, I and my delightful co-reviewer Diana Fritz will be posting reviews every day on Snipe. Read them, take them to heart, declare me an ignoramus, but see as much as possible. There is so much good stuff out there this year that it would be criminal not to take in as much as possible. When you are Olympicked out get yourself down to Camden and soak up the Fringe. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you… bubbles. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

The 7th annual Camden Fringe runs until 26 August. Go to camdenfringe.com for lists of shows, descriptions and dates.

01 Aug 2012

New WHY? album edges closer

Perennially awesome lit-hop three-piece WHY? have announced a new album, called “Mumps, etc.”, to be released on October 8th. The cover shows an elfin woman in the process of being eaten by a paper whale, and it was photographed live on a set rather than photoshopped – see the video proof below. WHY? play live at the Electric Ballroom on October 10th (and I’ll be banging on about their every move on this blog like the brazen devotee I am).

31 Jul 2012

Josephine Foster - Child Of God

You can always rely on Josephine Foster for a bit of fresh-spirited, feel good folk music that sounds like it wafted in from the corn fields of middle America. This one is about god, but let’s overlook that, because it’s a nice song, and who knows what it’s about. Foster’s voice has a wobbly vibrato to it that makes decoding the lyrics quite hard to these atheistic ears.

31 Jul 2012

London agenda for 31 July 20

1. Listen to a group of ladies, mainly from the pin-up, burlesque and cabaret scene, who love to read at Naked Girls Reading

2. Look at a celebration of temporary architecture dedicated to celebration at RIBA’s Party Pieces [Run Riot]

3. View the Tight Shorts Film Club at Wenlock & Essex [Don’t Panic]

4. Gawk at 66 Portland Place, a hidden Art Deco gem in the heart of London for Last Tuesday [Ian Visits]

5. Cycle in the Olympic Velodrome [Tired of London]

6. The Wilderness of Manitoba // Arthur Dyjecinski // Zervas & Pepper at The Windmill [London in Stereo]

31 Jul 2012

London Weather

11°

clear sky

Snipe Highlights

Some popular articles from past years