As promised, here's some more photos from the open day at Battersea Power station, with a full report here.

Labels: battersea power station

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Wow. Last night's Offline was fantastic - we had a special acoustic performance from fast-rising local boys The Thirst and I think the Innercity Pirates are my new favourite live band - and not just because they come from Cardiff!

The Thirst




The headliners, Innercity Pirates, put in a fantastic set. They were brilliant!





More pics.

Labels: brixton, offlie

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We went along to a rare open day at Battersea Power Station where ambitious new development plans were being shown off.

Expect a  full photo report soon, but here's a photo of the fabulous old building:

Labels: battersea power station, london, photos

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We had a terrific night of fun at Offline at JAMM on Thursday. The bill was, shall we say, very eclectic!

Susie Showers with tambourinin' nun.


Kinzli sang beautiful, delicate songs about love, loss and - err - a shooting on her Stoke Newington street.


A Craft Corner creation.


The eight-strong Apples for Everyone bring their cheery brand of onstage mayhem to Brixton.




The incredible sampling-whizz Anchorsong.


Headliners Star27 were *ace*!

More photos

Next Offline is at the Albert on the 19th July. Come along!

Labels: bands, offline

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Thursday's Offline show (tonight) has got a 'Critic's Choice' rating in Time Out - do come along as there's a chuffing fantastic bill on offer and it's all for free!

Here's a flyer for the next three gigs in the Albert, Brixton.

Click on the image to see a bigger, printable version. Feel free to stick them up and hand them out to your pals!

Labels: brixton, offline

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We've had two nice previews in Time Out for Thursday's gig at JAMM in Brixton and been awarded a 'recommended' rating. So come along and don't miss out on the fun!

Gig listing:

Star27 + Anchorsong + Apples For Everyone + Kinzli
Thu Jul 10
Jamm, 261 Brixton Road, London, SW9 6LH
* Recommended    * FREE

Off-kilter punk-pop sextet from Preston who dress up as chimney sweeps and blend Dexy's, Arcade Fire chamber pop, Sparks and The Blockheads, headline. Plus Japanese electronic beat assembler Anchorsong (aka Tokyo's Masaaki Yoshida), 'big music' made on everything from a banjo to tin whistle from the 14-piece AFE and wispy, Vashti Bunyan-style folk from Kinzli.

... and here's the review in 'Happenings':

Offline Mini Festival
 Happenings
Thu Jul 10, Jamm, SW9
Urban 75 roll out another top-shelf night of great bands, singer/songwriters, cabaret crooners, comedians and poets, and all for free. They're nice that way. Look out for Star27, Anchorsong, Apples for Everyone, Kinzli, Vic Lambrusco's Cabaret Hour, and 'a ton of top DJs'

It starts at 8.30. Hope to see you there!

Labels: brixton, offline

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The weather continues its un-summer like path (which is fine by me seeing as I prefer the golden browns of Autumn and the crisp air of wintery mornings!)...

Here's some pics taken from my window:



Red chimney pots and Crystal Palace transmitter.


Rainbow against a dark summer sky, Denmark Hill.


Tulse Hill church spires.

Labels: brixton, photos

Brick Lane runs from Bethnal Green in the north, passes through Spitalfields and on towards Whitechapel High Street.

Situated in the heart of London's Sylheti Bangladeshi community, the street is known as the curry capital of the UK.


Walking down the street you can expect a full hustle from waiters and restaurant employers (amusingly described as 'Tikka Touts') hell bent on luring you into their premises.


As you progress down the street, expect to be offered ever-improving offers; "Twenty five percent off - but only if you take our offer now!", "Free first round of drinks plus thirty per cent off!" and my favourite, "Special VIP table!".

My tip: decide where you want to go first and ring up them up beforehand to sort out a good deal.


We went to Cafe Raj on 42 Hanbury St, just off Brick Lane.


The food was very good, the restaurant clean and the service reasonably swift, although our promised 'free Cobra beer' turned out to be a glass of some nondescript lager.

The promised discount also needed some firm renegotiation after they sneakily added a clause that everyone had to order a main course.


Things got a little tatty when we headed out to the outside loo that had a worryingly large pile of toilet rolls stacked up.


I loved this 'Chef of the Year' sign. No need to tell us what year it was or who accorded the place the honour!

Still, it was a good curry, and although not quite able to challenge our favourite curry house in the capital - Khan's of Brixton - we can definitely recommend the place.


More Brick Lane photos

Labels: brick lane, curry

Friday night at the Albert with the Royal Trumpets, The Hospital Bombers and Nigel of Bermondsey was fun.
Here's some photos!











More photos 

Labels: brixton, offline

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I'm not normally an opera-going sort of chap, but we popped along to see a production of Candide by the English National Opera at The London Coliseum.



Voltaire's story of a young bloke hell-bent on follow his tutor’s philosophy of cheery and perpetual optimism in the face of endless personal disasters is an entertaining tale, and the performance and stage sets were spectacular and exquisite.



Unfortunately, pre-show photography is completely banned in the beautiful theatre on some fuzzy grounds of "copyright,"  so here's a few snatched shots at the beginning and end.
.
 



Read review from The Stage
 

Labels: london, opera

We originally tried to get a Clipper boat back into town after learning that the DLR system was suspended for maintenance work.

Despite being sold the ticket and informed that the next boat would be there in '10 minutes,' the queue stretched for some distance, and we learned that we'd be looking at a 45 minute wait minimum.

"Bugger that!" we thought, so we hotfooted it through the tunnel under the Thames and got a bus from Island Gardens into Canary Wharf.



The tunnel was designed by civil engineer Sir Alexander Binnie for the London County Council, with John Cochrane & Co being contractors.

It was built to allow workers living on the south side of the Thames to reach their workplaces in the London docks and shipyards on the Isle of Dogs opposite, and replaced an earlier expensive - and sometimes unreliable - ferry service.



The northern end of the tunnel was damaged by World War II bombs, necessitating repairs that included the addition of a thick steel and concrete inner lining. You can see that this lining substantially reduces the diameter for several metres.



There was some kind of kerrr-azy arty event going on in Canada Square.



The stunning Canary Wharf tube station, which was was opened in September 1999 as part of the Jubilee Line Extension. 

Labels: canary wharf, greenwich, tunel

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We enjoyed a lovely picnic* in Greenwich Royal Park, which covers 183 acres of land originally laid out in the 17th century.  (*before the braying yuppies turned up)

Greenwich Park was once a hunting park and now forms one of the largest single green spaces in south east London. Enclosed as far back as 1433, it's now part of the protected Greenwich World Heritage Site.



Looking down at the The Queen's House, Greenwich, which was built in 1614-1617 by architect Inigo Jones

Subsequently altered by Jones around 1635 for Henrietta Maria, the House is now regarded as one of the most important buildings in architectural history, being Britain's first consciously classical building.

The Queen's House is now both a grade I listed building and a Scheduled ancient monument.



Lurking inside this 45-ton bronze-clad truncated cone is the new Peter Harrison Planetarium, a 120-seat digital laser planetarium, opened in May, 2007.



Old and new. Canary Wharf with the Royal Naval College in the foreground.

More photos here.

Labels: greenwich, photos, walk

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Continuing our walk from the O2 dome around the Greenwich Peninsula, we walked around the Royal Naval College, before popping into the excellent Greenwich Market for some fresh bread, cheese and olives:



Formerly occupied by the pre-Tudor 'Palace at Greenwich' of 1428, the current buildings were planned by Sir Christopher Wren with various big name architects like Hawksmoor, Vanbrugh and James 'Athenian' Stuart completing the job during the first half of the eighteenth century .




Old fella checking out the sights.



 In the food market.



 The temporary 60m high Greenwich Wheel in front of the Pepy's Building Visitor Centre stands taller than Nelson's Column and offers panoramic views across London.



Greenwich Church St.

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Here's some more pics from  our wander along the Thameside path from the Millennium Dome into Greenwich. More photos soon!











It was nice to find what felt like a piece of 'old' London - it reminded me of when I walked along the old docks before Canary Wharf sprung up.



More photos here

Labels: dome, london, photos

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There's a little-used but really interesting walk that runs from the Millennium Dome (or 'The O2' or whatever it's now called) along a riverside path into Greenwich.

The walk breezes past acres of empty, deserted land and disused quays that will, no doubt, soon be sprouting ghastly developments galore.

Here's some pics from part one of the walk:









More pics here

Labels: dome, london, walk

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Millennium Dome main arena, 2000.

Now rebranded as The O2 and part of the 'O2 entertainment district' (you what?!), I've always rather liked the structure and even enjoyed visiting it back in 2000.

We took a stroll around the area yesterday as part of a lovely walk into Greenwich - here's some photos of the redeveloped O2 site.





More pics and feature

Labels: dome, london, photos

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Some snaps from my wander around central London yesterday:



Street artist in Leicester Square.



The half-demolished 1962 Swiss Centre in Leicester Square. The building was originally designed to provide a showcase for Switzerland and hosted a Swiss bank and the Swiss National Tourist Board.



The original Empire Theatre opened with a production of 'Chilperic' which was a 'Grand Musical Spectacular' by Florimund Herve in 1884.
Just three years later it had been become 'The Empire Theatre of Varieties,' reverting back to The Empire Theatre in 1898 before finally closing and being demolished in January 1927.

The second Empire Theatre opened as a cinema in November 1928, although it still put on occasional ballet and dancing shows before closing in May 1961 after a 76 week run of 'Ben Hur.'

After a major reconstruction, the third incarnation of the Empire Theatre opened in December 1962, and now hosts a cinema and casino.



The 20 feet tall tower of the art deco Odeon Leicester Square, once the 'flagship' cinema of Oscar Deutsch's Odeon Theatres Ltd.

Built on the site of the Alhambra Theatre (1883-1936), the Odeon opened for business on 2nd November 1937, offering 2,116 seats - and all of them covered in mock leopard-skin!



Trafalgar Square at night.




More photos

Labels: leicester square, london, photos, trafalgar square

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I went along to what was billed as 'London's Largest Living Room' in the courtyard of Somerset House on Saturday and have to say as I was a little underwhelmed.







Somerset House is till a great place to visit and a lovely peaceful retreat in the heart of central London. It's even better in the summer when the fountains are working.



Echoing its naval heritage, there's some elaborate and rather bonkers nautical stone carvings on the exterior walls of Somerset House.

More photos.

Labels: london, photos, somerset house

Some more photos from my Saturday stroll:



This elaborate piece of punctuation-untroubled stone lettering informs passers by that:

"In this court in the 18th century stood the Fountain Tavern where the political opponents of Sir Robert Walpole met using the title of the Fountain Club, also the Coal Hole the meeting place of the Wolf Club of which about 1826 Edmund Kean was a leading member".

In case you didn't know (and I certainly didn't) external link Edmund Kean (1789- 1833) was an English actor, regarded in his time as the greatest ever.

I'd heard of external link Sir Robert Walpole (1676 - 1745) of course - he was a bigshot statesman in Georgian times.



The 'Armchair Theatre' space outside the National Theatre.



I continue to be baffled by the growing collection of bizarre 'human statues' that line the South Bank between Hungerford and Westminster bridges. Why do people do it? And why do people give them money?



There's no sign of the sun, but that didn't stop these folks in Victoria Embankment Gardens.

More

Labels: london, photos, southbank

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On Saturday, I popped along to what was billed as a "national demonstration and carnival parade against fascism and racism" in Trafalgar Square put on by Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) and Unite Against Fascism (UAF).



It wasn't exactly packed...

Labels: london, photos, protest

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We had a great live show at the Brixton Albert on Saturday with the 12-strong Trans-Siberian March Band headlining. The band bravely started their set outside on Coldharbour Lane before packing out the dancefloor inside.



I was sound engineering for the night, and I had to keep my wits about me to mix clarinets, trumpets, a tuba, a sax, vocals, acoustic guitar, hand drum and trombone!



The band were a whole heap of fun, and I hope to have them back soon...

Labels: brixton, offline

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