Category Archives: London

2011 ➤ Images of London in the hands of the mob

London riots, Saturday: Fire rages through the Carpet Right store in Tottenham, north London, after an arson attack

London riots, Saturday: three text messages sent via the BlackBerry BBM service by some organising hand to rally looters. (BBC)


❏ Tottenham Hale retail park, Saturday-Sunday: One looter asks the cameraman to look after his bike so it didn’t get nicked while he went inside the shops (by viceuk1)


❏ Fires over north London: Time lapse filming as Tottenham buildings burned into early Sunday morning (by itdrewitself).

London riots, Sunday evening: Two young men are detained outside the Currys electrical store in Brixton, south London. Photograph © by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

London riots, Monday: A woman leaps from a burning building into the arms of neighbours in Church Street, Croydon. She was later identified as 32-year-old Monika Konczyk from Poland, who works in the local Poundland store and was able to spend the night with her sister. Photograph by © Amy Weston/WENN.com

❏ Update Aug 10: The photographer Amy Weston took this dramatic shot on Monday night in what she called a “war-zone”, meaning the outer London borough of Croydon where the House of Reeves furniture store was ablaze [below]. It was published on the front page of Tuesday’s final editions of the Guardian, Times, Sun, Daily Mirror and Daily Telegraph and in many other papers. Weston says: “In front of me was this fire with six or seven riot police and this lady falling from a window, but directly behind me was Surrey Street market where the larger stores sell electrical products… As I turned around it was like a war-zone… People were turning on each other and beating each other up, and mugging and robbing each other. That’s when I took my cardigan off and wrapped it round my camera so nobody could see what I had and I ran as fast as I could through that crowd back to my car.” Listen to the full four-minute interview for BBC Radio 4’s Media Show here:

London riots, Monday: the 144-year-old House of Reeves furniture store ablaze in Croydon, south London. A 33-year-old man was later charged with arson. (BBC)


❏ Driving through London riots: Video of looters ruling in Clapham about 21:30 Monday before police took control of the situation (by RussiaToday).

London riots, Monday: Looters run from a clothing store in Peckham, in a third night of violence. Photograph © by Dylan Martinez

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➤ Inbetweeners, bring your wellies — Christos hits the cutting-room floor and he’s gutted

❚ THE INBETWEENERS MOVIE opens on August 17 in the UK, but apparently without Christos Tolera, actor, socialite and in the 80s singer with the Latin combo Blue Rondo à la Turk. He’d been cast in a wonderful cameo role in the film of the TV series — until this Wednesday, when he made this tear-stained announcement on Facebook …

My agent received a call today from the producer on The Inbetweeners movie. Having been featured in the trailer for the last month, been inundated with messages of people having seen it, i was today informed i have been cut from the movie due to time constraints. If you were planning to see this film to see a glimpse of me, don’t bother. Gutted.

So for all of his fans the video above has rescued that lost scene, cut from the latest trailer as well as the movie. But it is dedicated especially to Christos himself, as a tribute to a man who has entertained us in so many ways over 30 years. His co-stars are Blake Harrison as Neil and James Buckley as Jay, from the C4 TV series The Inbetweeners. The film sees the four 18-year-old lads who are its stars heading off to the buzzing resort of Malia, one of Europe’s hedonistic hotspots for mainly young British tourists on the Greek island of Crete.

The Inbetweeners Movie, Jay, James Buckley , 91Kristie

In Malia: Jay spots Kristie behind her camera

The new official trailer isn’t worth the celluloid it’s printed on (*spits*), but the locally shot video by Malia TV [below] gives the flavour of the place. A second clip is a gem shot by a British holidaymaker called Kristie who caught the film crew at work on main strip, Malia Beach Road. It’s pretty obvious that Jay (left, in red) has spotted the girl behind the camera, and she’s definitely in with a chance ;)

❏ FOOTNOTE — Who have Facebookers voted “Hottest Girl From The Inbetweeners”? Answer: Neil’s sister, closely followed by Will’s Mum.


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2011 ➤ Soho House purges suit-and-tie man while the Groucho laughs all the way to the bar

Soho House, Nick Jones,Richard Caring

The Soho House dress-code paradox: shirt-sleeved founder Nick Jones and his suited boss, multi-millionaire Richard Caring. (Jones pictured by Christopher Morris)

❚ “TOO SCHOOL FOR COOL”!!! This is the Soho House’s newly enforced verdict on the wearing of suits and ties by its 15,000 members at its achingly hipster hangouts across the world. One London member has now been banned from entering the Greek Street club and a second warned via text message that he was dressing too formally.

A year ago The Daily Telegraph reported New York’s Soho House purging members to regain its cool, and over the past two years about 1,000 of its 4,500 members have not had their annual $1,800 memberships renewed, mainly bankers, lawyers and anyone considered “too corporate”. Being aged over 27 didn’t go down too well either.

The paradox is that the 80% owner of the Soho House Group, the immaculately groomed restaurant tycoon Richard Caring (worth £700m on The Sunday Times Rich List) is never seen out of a suit and seldom without a tie. On the other hand, his open-collared Soho House chief executive Nick Jones, who founded the careerist club in 1995, favours the dress-down style of the creative industries, judging by most of his Google images. In 2005 he told the Independent: “Yes, I get Basil Fawlty moments. They usually revolve around suits. I don’t like packs of people in suits. I feel like giving these people some jeans and a T-shirt and saying, ‘Can you go and put these on, please?’ ”

Does this mean Basil would turn away his boss Richard Caring at the door?

Stephen Fry, Groucho Club

Groucho Club style: the corduroyed Stephen Fry

Style guru Peter York identifies what he calls Soho House’s implicit dress code as “knowing casual, rather than the smart casual people bang on about — Tod’s, dark linen, soft shirts with teeny open collars and all that expensively sub-fusc kit”. So loosen up, Mr Caring, if you expect to gain admission.

At the other end of London’s Old Compton Street, peels of laughter were tonight ricocheting round the distinctly more artsy and proudly louche Groucho Club (founded 1985) where broadcaster Stephen Fry has been known to murmur: “Ties are tolerated but not encouraged.” Matthew Hobbs, managing director of the Groucho, gave today’s Evening Standard the official line: “We have no dress code whatsoever.”

❏ Soho House members include: Kirsty Young, Michael Hill, Ashley Highfield, Spencer Matthews, Ollie Locke, Geri Halliwell, Nigella Lawson, Scarlett Johansson, Uma Thurman, Ed Westwick, Ellie Goulding, Davina McCall.

❏ Groucho Club members include: Stephen Fry, Sienna Miller, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Sam Taylor-Wood, Jonathan Yeo, Alex James, Janet Street-Porter, Melvyn Bragg, Julie Burchill, Gary Kemp, Robert Elms, Liam Gallagher, Peter Saville.

➢ Club bans PR boss for wearing a tie — extract from tonight’s Evening Standard report:

A leading London businessman has attacked “Stalinist” rules that led to him being banned from Soho House for wearing a suit and tie. Peter Bingle, 51, has been told he is not welcome at the West End members’ club or any of its offshoots after “clearly disregarding” its casual dress code. The sanction comes after another member was told that his suit was “too school for cool”.

Mr Bingle, chairman of Bell Pottinger Public Affairs, said he had received a “yellow card” e-mail two weeks ago. It warned him Soho House “openly discourages the wearing of suits at the clubs as we are a club for the creating industries and like being a relaxed environment”. Yesterday he was given his marching orders in a letter from UK membership manager Tom Russell.

➢ The PR man Peter Bingle musing about being banned from Soho House for wearing a suit

REACTIONS, TALKING POINTS

➢ “As a member myself I go to Soho House wearing a tie because you are not allowed to” — Michael Hill, creative director of Drake’s, the Savile Row haberdasher, in the Evening Standard, July 28

Soho House, anti-suit, dress codes,

Culture Gestapo’s message

➢ Do suits indicate pretentious self-regard and lack of imagination? — FT.com, July 28

➢ Soho House gets it in the neck for telling members to remove ties — Evening Standard, July 29

➢ Peter York: The secret and changing life of the private members’ club — Independent, July 31

➢ New York’s Soho House purges members — Daily Telegraph, July 2010

➢ The Culture Gestapo is on the loose — Gawker, 2009

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➤ Does chart-topper Adele really need to be on the Mercury shortlist?

Mercury Music Prize 2011, shortlist,

Mercury Music Prize 2011 shortlist: 12 contenders for album of the year

Bring Me The Horizon, Mercury Prize, shortlist 2011, Guardian poll,music❚ BRING ME THE HORIZON (pictured), a British metalcore band from Sheffield, topped a Guardian reader poll (now closed) to predict contenders for this year’s Mercury Prize 2011 shortlist for albums of the year. Announced today, girls include Adele, Katy B and P J Harvey, with Elbow and Tinie Tempah among the boys, but not many bands. Amazingly the Guardianistas’ favourite metal band does not get a mention. Two months to wait for the awards themselves.

➢ View Guardian video verdicts on the
Mercury Music Prize nominees

Is the Mercury Prize there to reward commercial success? Guardian music supremo Caspar Llewellyn Smith says the shortlist calls into question what the prize is for: “If Adele’s on the Mercury shortlist, why don’t you have Take That as well?” — Caroline Sullivan, Tim Jonze and Smith review the runners for 2011.

➢ In the Telegraph, chief rock critic Neil McCormick believes this shortlist is the start of a new sound in pop

It is an interesting Mercury Prize list this year, that suggests to me a nation of adventurous musical talent, stirring a bubbling cauldron of musical possibilities, and starting to forge something new. This is the sound of pop at a crossroads, looking out towards new horizons. It’s interesting how well all these albums actually sit together, from the mainstream pop successes of Adele, Katy B and Tinie Tempah to the dreamy underground experimentation of James Blake and Ghostpoet; the intelligent, emotional songcraft of Elbow, PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi and King Creosote & Jon Hopkins to the multifarious genre adventures of Everything Everything and Metronomy…

❏ FOOTNOTE Tell the Guardian how good or otherwise you thought their seven-day survey A History of Modern Music — in the course of which there isn’t one, NOT ONE direct reference to J-a-a-a-a-ames Brown, the father of funk.

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2011 ➤ Open your wallet for a Vintage sting on London’s Southbank

Princess Julia, Chris Sullivan, deejays, Vintage 2011,Southbank Centre, clubbing

Vintage deejays at Vintage 2011: original Blitz Kids such as Princess Julia and Chris Sullivan will be spinning the vinyl to recreate legendary 80s club soundtracks from the Blitz to the Wag

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❚ VINTAGE 2011 IS A MUSIC AND DRESS-UP festival indoors at London’s Southbank Centre (so without the mud), curated by Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway. This three-day party from Friday July 29 celebrates seven decades of British cool from the 1920s to the 80s. Taking its lead from the Festival of Britain (1951), the blurb says there is no single creative focus, just hours of music, fashion, film, art, design and dance each day.

Vintage 2011 , SBC, RFH,Wayne Hemingway,London, Southbank Centre , music, fashion, festivalAll levels of the Royal Festival Hall are transformed into a multi-venue playground, with ten vintage nightclubs such as The Soul Casino, Let it Rock, The Torch Club and The Leisure Lounge. New this year are The Studio, Prohibition Room, The Bunker Club and the North South Divide. In total there’ll be 70 live performances, 150 deejays, exclusive catwalk shows with Jo Wood and Pearl and Daisy Lowe; decade specific make-overs; vintage food and cocktails and 250 sellers at the vintage marketplace. Each day sees a major Revue in the main auitorium: Heaven 17, Alan Wilder and Thomas Dolby, for example, in Friday’s Electronic Revue… Percy Sledge in Saturday’s Soul Revue… David McAlmont, Sandie Shaw and more in Sunday’s Hit Parade.

Sue Tilley, Leigh Bowery, biographer

Sue Tilley: catwalk show celebrating 80s nightlife

Now take a deep breath. On the Friday at 6pm Cavalcade of the 80s is a catwalk fashion show presented by Sue Tilley, Leigh Bowery’s biographer and Lucian Freud model. Sue says: “Bodymap are showing about six outfits with models including Barry Kamen and Les Child… There is going to be an Antony Price dress… Kim Jones is lending some Leigh Bowery originals… Rachel Auburn is recreating one of her outfits. And there’s the second performance this year after 28 years of the 80s club sensations The Trindys.” The models will include friends from the 80s plus new club kids Daniel Lismore and Felicity Hayward. [“My idea of the 80s” — Sue Tilley interviewed at Dazed Digital]

On Saturday the RFH Penthouse venue goes “back to the futurists” and the New Romantic Blitz Club era with 80s three genuine Blitz Kid super-deejays Princess Julia, Jeffrey Hinton and Mark Moore.

At her blog The World of Princess Julia, the doyenne of clubland deejays gives a quick rundown on how she graduated from the Blitz Club cloakroom to the wheels of steel and says of Vintage: “I think I’ll play a mixture of music that has played a part in my deejay career. It will range from post-punk electronica, disco, retro pop, dance and anything else I find at the bottom of my handbag.”

➢ View slideshow of previously unseen 80s pix by Shapersofthe80s at ClashMusic

Classic Album Sundays and Bowers & Wilkins present the Best British Albums at Vintage in four two-hour listening sessions each day in the St Paul’s Pavilion. At 7.30 on Saturday Mark Moore will be introducing Joy Division’s Closer album and the record will be played in its entirety (from vinyl of course) over fab B&W audio kit.

Chris Hill, Robbie Vincent, clubbing,funk, soul DJs, dance music,

Funk royalty: Chris Hill (left) plays the Vintage festival, but what about Robbie Vincent?

For Sunday night in the Penthouse Chris Sullivan — the original Wag Club host for 19 years and Uber-Shaper of the 80s — recreates the funkier, post-Romantic spirit of Le Beat Route (1980–83, zoot suits) and the Wag (1982+ ripped jeans and Celebrity Squares) along with other gods among dance deejays Paul Murphy and Jay Strongman (who also plays Warehouse on Friday and Let It Rock, Saturday).

Over in the Soul Casino the funk legend that is Chris Hill joins the legends who are Norman Jay and Colin Curtis. Tsssss! Have the Hemingways got any inkling of exactly how many galaxies of star quality they have booked?

In all likelihood, Sullivan says: “There might well be a bit of dancing.” When asked what he’s going to play first to get feet kicking, he responded: “Might well be one of THE great recordings, Eddie Kendricks – Keep on Truckin. Lyrically it’s just there. What a Bobby dazzler!”

Ticket prices are frankly a sting, starting at £60 (wince!), since you are the star turn at this DIY event, but dedicated followers of fashion not yet squeezed by the recession aren’t likely to complain.

➢ Ticket without evening show £60, with Vintage Revue from £75 upwards, Fri–Sun July 29–31, full details at the Southbank Centre

➢ July 22 update: We should celebrate Britain’s role in clubbing — Wayne Hemingway in the Independent, sadly getting his London club memories muddled

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