South London mental health users share their experiences in the short film Overload
Ivan Riches helped South Londoners who use mental health services to make a film explaining their experiences.
The theme is overload. In some cases it’s an overload of memories, in others London itself is too much.
“Too many people, too much noise, I’m always waiting…” says one contributor.
“It’s all someone else’s life”, says another.
More on the film, the filmakers who Ivan helped, and the work of the Cooltan Arts group they come from can be found at A Funny Farm, the Cooltan group’s website. Also check out the Amazing World of Psychiatry blog.
31 Jul 2012
History: Meet the "impudent urchins" who held 1930s London together
A time when letters and telegrams were the most efficient means of communication will be hard for your Tweet-addled brain to imagine. But technology giveth as it taketh away, and you don’t have to imagine this primitive era because you can read about it in Peter Bethoud’s post about 1930s messenger boys. Peter’s source is the contemporary journalist James A Jones.
“All day long the messengers of London pass through the streets. They are the links which hold together the affairs of the capital. They are the bearers of urgent tidings. They carry, quite impartially, love letters and secret treaties, theatre tickets and telegrams that are the tidings of death.”
And yet they were just boys for all that. One of them got in trouble and explained himself like this:
“Master Smith called me a woodenhead, so I poured hot tar over his dinner and punched him on the nose.”
The post contains at least 10 other details which are as evocative of the time and of the lives these boys lived. There are also original illustrations.
Discovering London – Remarkable Lives of London Messengers in the 1930s
30 Jul 2012
30 Jul 2012
London agenda for Monday 30 July 2012
1. Hear a festival curated by east London Nu World Reggae guitarist Planetman at Global Beats Festival [Le Cool]
2. Listen to the Olympic edition of the Velvet Tongue Erotic Literary Soiree [Run Riot]
3. Go to Camden’s Barfly for Wiley [Don’t Panic]
4. See how the Victorian period, viewed in the West as a time of self-confident progress, was experienced by Asians as a catastrophe [Ian Visits]
5. Attend the Peninsula Festival [Tired of London]
6. See Kyla La Grange for free at Rough Trade East [London in Stereo]
There is all sorts of free stuff going on at the various Olympic Country Houses. Check out Snipe’s guide here.
30 Jul 2012
Tilbury - Drama
Happy people puking peas and a levitating exorcism make a surprisingly apt backdrop for this winning, folky indie-pop number from Icelandic newcomers Tilbury. Pitched somewhere between Grandaddy and Kings Of Convenience, their soft-edged sound has hit daytime radio on their home turf – expect an invasion of England over the coming months.
And in case that’s not enough Tilbury, here’s their previous single “Tenderloin”:
28 Jul 2012
London agenda for 27 July 2012
1. Hear the master of techno, Derrick May, play a rare headline set at a secret location [Flavorpill]
2. Hear five amazing true stories at a twilight event by the magical Ladies’ pond [Run Riot]
3. Listen to the amazing Ivan Smagghe at Plastic People [Don’t Panic]
4. See if it is all happening late at the Zoo [Ian Visits]
5. Watch the Olympic Opening Ceremony [Tired of London]
6. Birthday Sex // Trophys // One Man Destruction Show at the Victoria [London in Stereo]
27 Jul 2012
It's Olympics "stop whingeing" day. Are you on board?
There’s been a lot of whingeing going round just lately. A lot of lily-livered guff about how the Olympics are a corporate monstrosity run by paranoid control freaks who have corrupted and polluted a once noble and pure ideal.
That sort of stuff was all very well last week, but today the Games open and the whingeing is supposed to stop.
For inspiration, here’s the Mayor not whingeing to great rhetorical effect:
This is the thing:
A mass gathering of humanity is occurring in the middle of our city, one that will bring people together and create a warm though possibly illusory glow of mutual understanding. That is an interesting and exciting event, and it’s just about to start. Yay.
Does that make the whinges invalid? No. They are entirely valid.
The Olympics is both a wonderful gathering of humanity and a corporate and authoritarian monstrosity at the same time. This contradiction can be reconciled. The key is to cultivate an attitude of passionate ambivalence:
Passionately embrace and enjoy the glow of communal human experience, and the running, splashing, and dangling exploits of the planet’s finest human specimens.
Passionately critique and undermine the branding, restricting and controlling attempts of the planet’s most overbearing corporate lackeys.
So happy “sort of stop whingeing day” to you all!
Links:
Snipe – Five paranoid authority freakouts that could spoil the Olympics
Snipe – The London Eye Olympic happiness index illustrates everything that’s wrong with everything
Pindar – Olympian 8, For Alcimedon of Aegina who won the Boys’ Wrestling in 460 BC
27 Jul 2012
London agenda for 26 July 2012
1. Listen to a ‘hypnotic slice of World War Two audio verite mixed with banjo and electronica’ at the Bull & Gate with Public Service Broadcasting [Le Cool]
2. Watch a ‘masterpiece of early ‘70s Italian genre cinema, the stylish, sexy and enchanting’ Queens of Evil [Run Riot]
3. Launch a literary basecamp for the Olympics at the Book Club [Flavorpill]
4. Hear as Georges Kaplan Presents Live from the ‘Ditch at Zigfrid Von Underbelly [Don’t Panic]
5. ‘See items not normally on display at this 1930s modernist home designed by Erno Goldfinger’ [Ian Visits]
6. Drink at the Cock Tavern [Tired of London]
7. Honeyblood // Carousels // Joyland at the Old Blue Last [London in Stereo]
26 Jul 2012
Blanck Mass - White Math
Blanck Mass made one of the albums of the year with his self-titled 2011 debut, constructed from masses of verdant nature sounds piled together in a vast , celestial ambient sound. The follow up is an AA side 12” single, to be released in October on the Software label. 21-minute epic “White Math” sees Power introducing beats to his lush soundscapes, but beneath the persistent synth line and skittering processed drum sounds there’a warm, pulsing drone that keeps the trancelike quality of Power’s output intact.
26 Jul 2012
Are you new, foreign, or too posh for public transport? Take Slate's Olympians or Tube Stops quiz!
From a wag at Slate called Michael Sloan comes a tricky quiz for London outsiders.
Is Dagenham Heathway a talented but flighty 400m hurdler?
Is Alexander Parsonage an atttractive little commuter outpost in zone 6 of the Metropolitan Line?
25 Jul 2012
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
- Summer Camp: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days
- The best church names in London, and where they come from
- An interview with Desiree Akhavan
- Could red kites be London's next big nature success story?
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- London has chosen its mayor, but why can’t it choose its own media?
- Number of people using Thames cable car plunges
- Diary of the shy Londoner
- Punk brewery just as sexist and homophobic as the industry they rail against
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