London agenda for Wednesday 6 June 2012

1. Listen to with author and pub connoisseur Robin Turner discuss pub documentary Roll out the barrel at Rough Trade [Le Cool]

2. Be one of us, one of us, one of us at a showing of Freaks at the Book Club [Run Riot]

3. Eh, Tenacious D is amusing enough for a mention. Brixton Academy [Don’t Panic]

4. Watch Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit in the outdoor concrete splendour of Broadgate Circle [Time Out]

5. Ask what if ‘artists and designers redesigned economics? Presumably it would be the world’s first alcohol-backed currency. At RCA. [Ian Visits]

6. Buy books at Watermark [Tired of London]

Scott Rudd - Another Lover

Cheek Mountain Thief

As seen owning the big stage at Nasa during last week’s Reykjavík Music Mess festival, Cheek Mountain Thief is the project of Tunng’s Mike Lindsay. It’s folk, but not as you know it – Cheek Mountain is stuffed with catchy singalong micro-melodies from start to finish, with booming drums and a tribal, timeless chorus. We’ll be talking to Lindsay about the project in more detail soon.

Some ways a non-monarchist can enjoy the Jubilee without giving up all critical thought

My barber just wished me “a happy Jubilee weekend”, and I realised that people are actually doing this. They’re doing the Jubilee weekend. But how are they doing it? And more importantly, how should they?

For two groups of people, the answer is simple. The unapologetic monarchists are waving their flags and fawning at their hereditary leader. The vituperative republicans are snarking their dissent and being wantonly alternative. Those stranded in the middle find it a quite bewildering place.

What to do if you’re no fan of hereditary wealth and power, but respectful of the power of tradition? If you wouldn’t start with a monarchy, but think that since we’ve got one it probably does less harm than good? You’re neither a republican, nor a monarchist. Let’s call you a monarchnostic*. For you, just as for the small boats bobbing on the choppy waters of Sunday’s river pageant, navigation of the celebrations is perilous indeed.

Here are some options.

1. Suspend all critical thought and just get pissed

A superficially attractive approach, to be sure. If you take this road you will have a good time whether you’re at a street party or a revolutionary rally. But on Wednesday morning, when the hangover pounds inside your skull like a marching band, it will be to the tune of rank intellectual cowardice. Have some self-respect, and keep this option as a last resort.

2. Go to a street party a-ironically

There are several street parties going on this weekend. These will be populated by two groups: ironic cool types wearing “I heart corgi” t-shirts; and unironic line-towers waving flags and singing Rule Britannia. As a thoughtful monarchnostic, it is imperative that you do not identify with either of these factions. If you attend a street party, you must do so a-ironically. You must rid your mind not only of irony, but also the absence of irony. This is no small task. Your best bet is to dress neutrally, talk about the weather and imagine you’re American.

3. A monarchnostic picnic in the park

Think extremely carefully about your choices of venue, food and drink. For East London monarchnostics, (Queen) Victoria Park is obviously out of the question. All Royal Parks should probably be avoided in favour of smaller local greeneries with unobtrusive names. For balance, also steer clear of traditional republican meeting points like statues of people who helped the poor. Once at the park, work even harder than usual to avoid any insects whose social hierarchy culminates in a queen. If you find any, on no account chop off their heads, but try not to let the idle freeloaders feast on your hard-earned vanilla slices.

As far as food goes, Jubilee hampers from M&S have no place here, nor should revolutionary foodstuffs like brioche. Don’t drink anything connected with the British Empire’s history of conquest and subjugation, such as Indian tea, Caribbean rum or Scottish Irn Bru.

4. Choose bunting wisely

To bunt or not to bunt? On balance, discrete bunting may be appropriate for a domestic BBQ, as long as the patterns used avoid flags, heraldry or I heart corgi messages.

5. Enjoy the right bits of the river pageant

Attending an organised Jubilee event need not imply out and out monarchism, as long as you enjoy the right bits. Take pleasure in classical music and historically interesting boats. If the Queen sails past, distance yourself from cheering buffoons, look the lady square in the face and convey by a steely expression and a firm nod that you respect her many hours of work, but do so purely as an equal. Then suspend all critical thought and go and get pissed.

*Linguistic pedants: be reassured – I am aware that making this portmanteau commits a gross crime against the original Greek components, one which I can’t defend and so won’t even try.

London agenda for Friday 1 July 2012

1. Visit the old BBC studios on Marylebone High Street to see the incredible new production of Henry V by Theatre Delicatessen [Le Cool]

2. Kick off the jubilee festivities Fanny-style at the Waiting Room [Run Riot[

3. Listen to downtempo and garage-influenced grooves by Bonobo at the Waiting Room [Flavorpill]

4. View a bunch of Brightoner’s efforts to take ‘photography off the internet and back to print’ at the Photography Club [Don’t Panic]

5. Listen to Margaret Drabble, Jay Griffiths, Hanif Kureishi and Iain Sinclair discuss how literature conditions our geographical imagination [Ian Visits]

6. Attend Stoke Newington Literary Festival [Tired of London]

Five things hip young urban professionals think are good about their new rented place which are actually rubbish

_{An outdoor couch is never really this much fun}

If you’re lucky enough to have a job which pays enough for you to exercise some choice over where you rent, then you’ll find yourself making some agonised decisions. Is it more important to live close to a good pub or a tube station? Does it matter if there isn’t room to walk around both sides of your bed? How far away are you from the nearest available hummus?

Here are five things people think are good about prospective houses or flats when they see them advertised on gumtree, but which are, once moved in, a bitter disappointment.

1. A roof terrace – “for parties”

The ideal: There’s this roof terrace, yeah, with amazing views of the London skyline. You can see Canary Wharf/The Gherkin/The Shard and at night the city lights up before your eyes. We’ll take a couch up there, somehow, and have parties and through the haze of alcohol, for a special moment denied to people whose homes don’t have roof terraces, we’ll feel at one with our city, our neighbours, and ourselves.

The reality: The couch won’t fit up the stairs, and the pouf you took up there instead now rots, rain-soaked, in the corner, lending the whole terrace a grim abandoned air. You can see the top eighth of The Gherkin poking out above the concrete tower block opposite. It’s freezing up there. Shall we go back downstairs?

2. An open kitchen/lounge – “for dinner parties”

The ideal: We’ll have dinner parties and invite all our friends round and it’ll be great because I’ll be able to keep an eye on the roast peppers while still talking to everyone. It’ll be like cooking as a form of theatre, yeah?!

The reality: By day, a flotilla of flies buzz round your three-week old washing up, distracting you from watching Pointless on BBC1. By night, friends judge you for your poor chopping technique and lamentable pan management.

3. A balcony – “for growing herbs and shit”

The ideal: We’ll have rosemary, and thyme, and tomatoes – we’ll grow tomatoes from seed. They’ll feed us all summer! And in winter we’ll grow winter vegetables, whatever they are, and they’ll all taste so much better because we’ll have grown it ourselves on our own little piece of outdoors right in the heart of the city.

The reality: It faces north, up against the wall of a warehouse/exhibition space. It’s so dark the only thing that will grow there is cress. Who likes cress?

4. Other young urban professionals as neighbours – “for a really cool vibe”

The ideal: Our current friends are alright, but wouldn’t be great to have some new friends? Meet some different people? Not people different from us, we don’t want to mix with those. People that are like us but new. You know? We can have them round for dinner and have parties on the roof terrace and swap herbs with them and it’ll be like our own little village community, except on the 5th floor of a gated apartment complex.

The reality: What is with those people upstairs playing drum ‘n’ bass at all hours on a Tuesday night? And what about that couple next door who stay inside the whole time like weird recluses and complained when I left my bike in the communal entrance? What’s wrong with all these people? They aren’t like me at all!

5. A dishwasher

The ideal: It washes dishes.

The reality: Actually this one is pretty great.

See also:

The 5 best places in London to break up with someone
The five best frozen pizzas on the London convenience store market, ranked by value
The 5 best places in London to drink alone
Five filthy, dirty, obscenely sexual poems from the past
Annoying habits of Londoners #8: Keeping spreadsheets of their dates

London agenda for Thursday 31 May 2012

1. Listen to the deranged Alt-J at Corsica Studios [Le Cool]

2. Hear the ‘charismatic, idiosyncratic brand of modern folk music’ of Moulettes at Bush Hall [Run Riot]

3. Watch a preview of Chris Dangerfield’s new show Sex Tourist at the Hanbury Arms [Don’t Panic]

4. ‘Think fin de siècle finery and steampunk chic’ and attend Poplar’s Alternative Diamond Jubilee [Ian Visits]

5. See Sir John Soane’s Hogarth collection [Tired of London]

Boris Johnson to break promise for 1000 more police officers

Boris Johnson today admitted that he will not keep his pledge to put an extra 1000 police officers on the streets by the end of his second term as Mayor.

Asked whether he would keep the promise in his 9 point plan for Greater London for “1000 more police officers on the beat” he replied:

“If you are saying am I pledging to have more than 33,000 [police officers] by 2016 then no that’s not what I’m saying.”

Questioned today by Labour London Assembly Member Tom Copley, he claimed that Labour had made a “wilful misconstruction” of the pledge which he claimed was only to keep police officer numbers “high.”

“No I’m sorry I think there has been some misunderstanding here, I don’t know perhaps a wilful misconstruction of what I said. I made it abundantly clear during the election campaign that we had produced a 1000 more full time warranted officers than there were when I was elected. Looking forward to 2016, Tom, as I said many times before, what I pledged to do was use the budgets that we have available to keep numbers high until the end of the [Comprehensive Spending Review] period in 2015 but thereafter clearly there’s a new fight and we’ll have to go in and make the case for high police numbers in London.”

Reading out the Mayor’s fourth point of his nine point plan, Copley said:

“‘Making our streets and homes safer with a 1000 more police officers on the beat.’ That sounds an awful lot like a pledge for a 1000 more police officers by the end of your term.”

Boris replied that this had been “forensically examined” and would only be misunderstood by people who had “been living on Mars” during the campaign.

Johnson’s “nine point plan” was heavily criticised during the campaign after it emerged that another promise to “put £445 back in your pocket” in council tax actually referred to a hypothetical saving produced during his first term as mayor, and was not a promise for his second term.

Average: win gold medal. Interesting: The Royal Mail issues a stamp of you winning a gold medal. Amazing: The next day

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Radioblue - Take Me Home & London Show

Berlin electro duo Radioblue hit London this Friday night for a gig at pop-up diner & club Pret-a-Diner. Their debut single “Take Me Home” has hardly been off our stereo – the live show sounds like a treat to match.