Science: Long commutes fuck you up

Slate’s brilliant Moneybox blog reports on a recent study which breaks down to saying that:

“…a long commute is definitely bad for your blood pressure but it’s positively disastrous if it ends up eating into your physical activity time.”

In other words cycling/walking/running to work are not so bad. Anything that involves being stationary and slipping in and out of a depressive catatonia (looking at you, Tube) is very bad.

There’s now a significant body of evidence connecting long commutes with fatness, poor diet, higher divorce rates, loneliness, and sorrow.

The less time you spend getting to work, the better for your life.

Slate – Long commutes make you fat, give you high blood pressure
Slate – Your commute is killing you

See also:
How London’s tube map tricks you into taking longer routes
Most annoying habits on London public transport
Most annoying bits of bad English on the tube network

London agenda for Tuesday 12 June 2012

1. Watch a ‘new film programme of provocative and beautiful films made by animation artists from the last 20 years’ in Canary Wharf station [Le Cool]

2. Listen to Pia Juul, Denmark’s foremost literary author, and Ali Smith, award-winning author, for an evening of literature and conversation on the Thames [Run Riot]

3. Hear Sunn O))) with very special guests Nurse With Wound at Koko [Don’t Panic]

4. Listen to Time Out fawn over Martin Amis at Foyles [Time Out]

5. Tour the church of godless heathen journalists, St Bride’s [Ian Visits]

6. See the Ode to the West Wind mural [Tired of London]

Best of Londonist from Snipe's print edition

In each edition of the printed Snipe (found in only the finest venues in London) the editors of Londonist feature some of their best, most obsessive stories stories of the Metropolis.

In the latest edition:
10 Londoners With Slightly Unusual Middle Names by M@tt Brown

Did You Know? City Of London Police Are Olympic Title Holders by Matt Brown

Only In London: What People On Twitter Say About Our City

Design For This Year’s Serpentine Pavilion Revealed by Dean Nicholas

London Rebranded by Jonn Elledge

10.30am, and it's already the wettest day of the year

19.4mm and counting in the jurisdiction of NW3 Weather. This beats the previous wettest – 18.5mm on river pageant day last Sunday.

Oh, June.

On the bright side, rain is a great cleanser. Perhaps, just in time for the Olympics, all our sins are being swept away.

London agenda for Monday 11 June 2012

1. Watch a play on the rooftop of a Peckham cricket bat factory at Belong [Le Cool]

2. Watch a history of London on film at the Southbank Centre [Run Riot]

3. See Mohamed Fellag, Sophie Nélisse, and Émilien Néron in Monsieur Lazhar [Don’t Panic]

4. Discuss Rousseau and Modern Democracy at the British Academy [Ian Visits]

5. Drink at the Harrow [Tired of London]

Shiny Darkly - He's Suicidal

The kind of reverb-drenched, sleazy rock ‘n’ roll ear battering we’ve come to expect from Copenhagen’s Crunchy Frog Records, home to Snipe favourites Powersolo and Snake and Jet’s Amazing Bullit Band. Snipe music editor John Rogers describes He’s Suicidal as his joint ‘favourite single of the year’, along with Chin by Sleep Party People – he’s obviously never heard Young by Tulisa. Shiny Darkly’s debut EP is out now: you can get your hands on it here. Great name for a band btw.

Bawdsville Burlesque and Eastend Cabaret

It’s great that burlesque has made such a roaring comeback recently, but many shows seem little more than compilations of funny striptease acts. Bawdsville, on the other hand, opening at Etcetera Theatre above the Oxford Arms pub in Camden 10 June, promises to be more of a saucy vintage sketch revue. With songs and comic monologues performed by gorgeous women in frilly bits.

Drawing its inspiration from 50s American and British films and ads, jazz and cabaret standards, the show’s theme is sex wrapped in lashings of innuendo. Given that double entendres, despite the French name, are as British as slapping heart clogging clotted cream and jam on a brick of scone, it’s a shame this show wasn’t mounted during the jubilee weekend. The hour and a half long procession of boats paddling down the Thames would have been so much more fun if one of the vessels had featured folks like Scarlett Belle, Ophelie French-Kiss, Unruly Scrumptious and Audacity Fox dressed as deviant schoolgirls being punished for ravishing the prefect. Her Madge would have waved back. She appreciates the feel of a quality horsewhip.

Speaking of quality filth, Eastend Cabaret are back from Australia and performing as part of the London Wonderland Festival at the Underbelly venue at Southbank. Personally, as a longtime fan of Soviet seductress Bernadette and her adorably creepy pet Victor Victoria, I have made great use of their website’s resident expert Mr. Little Red Book. I can’t claim to understand everything this moustachioed copy of Mao Tsetung’s quotations advises, or even anything, but through diligent applications of wax and stiff wire I have at least attained a passable version of his ‘tache.

Eastend Cabaret have deservedly become stalwarts of the London cabaret and comedy scene, and they will no doubt draw big crowds in a festival also featuring Meow Meow and Tim Minchin.

Bawdsville 10 June at Etcetera Theatre, above the Oxford Arms pub, Camden High Street. Show starts at 8:30pm.

Dozens of cool shows at London Wonderland, but Eastend Cabaret are on at the Speigeltent, 9:30pm 22 June and 26 JulyBawdsville

Boris Johnson to break promise not to cut fire engines

Boris Johnson is to break his promise not to cut London’s fleet of fire engines, it was reported today.

The Mayor had denied claims before the election that he was planning to remove 27 fire engines from the brigade.

However, it now appears that he does intend to go ahead with those plans to both remove engines and close fire stations across London.

According to Pippa Crerar at the Evening Standard

“Fire stations across the capital face closure while hundreds of firefighters could lose their jobs and engines could be taken off the roads… Mayor Boris Johnson has previously ruled out frontline cuts. However, he is now expected to give them the green light.”

Pressed on plans first revealed by me two years ago Boris Johnson to remove the engines, he told the London Assembly that:

“The answer is no. I am in favour of retaining the 27 fire appliances and all front line operatives… There shouldn’t be a reduction in the fire appliances… I don’t want to get rid of them, what’s the problem?”

However, according to the Standard today:

“The Fire Brigade has 6,000 firefighters in London and hundreds of jobs could go through natural wastage. It also has 169 fire engines and up to 27 could be taken out of service.”

They also report that:

“Fire stations in outer London — including Wennington, Biggin Hill, Stanmore, Purley and Sutton — are understood to be the most vulnerable to closure. However, central London stations such as those at Euston Road, Kensington High Street and Whitechapel could also face mergers.”

£50 million was taken out of the Fire Brigades reserves before the election so that Boris Johnson could maintain police officer numbers.

The Fire Brigade’s Union today refused to rule out industrial action if the mayor goes ahead with the cuts.

Snipe Likes: Torches - 'Sky Blue & Ivory'

The debut single proper from these London gloom-merchants. Frontman Charlie Drinkwater channels the spirit of many an ’80s new romantic crooner, in fine fashion – the new Tony Hadley anyone? Sky Blue & Ivory is released July 23 on new label Fractions of One . Catch Torches at the Old Queen’s Head, June 14 and White Heat (Madame Jo Jo’s), June 23.

Internet Forever

Internet Forever have always been a strange and wonderful band.

They started as a duo: a talented, super-niche solo artist and scene-star with pop aspirations called Laura Wolf, and Heartbeeps, aka Craig Nunn, a lo-fi musician and photographer with a knack for eye-catching imagery and ear-catching songs. Their first demo of “Break Bones” illustrated both a striking capacity for pop songwriting, and a sensibility that redefined the lower limits of lo-fi. It swept the blogsphere like wildfire, right up the the heady heights of Pitchfork. “That version of Break Bones was all we could manage with our mad skills at the time,” says Craig. “It’s not like we were intentionally part of a lo-fi scene. I think we were always destined to make a straight-up pop record.”