I had my second helping of tiny Melburnian fun last night. The setlist was shuffled around a bit, but essentially it was the same show, and almost as enjoyable as the last time (I say almost because there’s nothing quite like being the first person to see the final product, sat sniffing distance from Jean Paul Gautier).
It was the 50th show of the tour, and still not a single beat was missed. I have a seat up front on the cards for Monday night…
From the Londonist with every sentiment echoed…
Bye Bye Sister Ray?
Whenever we’re in the West End and need to kill some time we usually wander down to Sister Ray on Berwick Street for a bit of a browse. We flick through the cool vinyl, play with the tenori and generally think it’s a wicked shop. We never actually buy anything though, and that seems to be the problem, as it’s just been announced that the store has gone into administration.
As one of the few independent record stores left this is obviously not a good thing. Starting out as a stall in Camden Market in the 80s, the store is regularly named as a band’s favourite show in London and they’ve grown into one of the most recognised alternative stores out there.
All is not lost though, the store is still trading and the owners are hopeful for an quick investment saying that, “This is a unique business with a truly global reputation”.
Good luck guys!
I’m now a contributing writer for the Venere travel guide/blog. My first article, on holidaying in Florence on a budget, went up today and you can read it here.
If you like it, please make it known on your internets with the links below!
The guardian’s been rather good for online articles lately. Today, Stephen Moss has a go at doing as many arts-related things in a week for £50. Something I might have to try myself once I’ve moved closer to the river.
Dr Alice Roberts: Don’t Die Young: Female Reproductive Organs
Dr Alice is joined by Rachel Macfarlane, a 24-year-old paralegal in Manchester, who would like to find out more about her body and her fertility. Rachel, like most women, is likely to be at her most fertile when young, but admits that she has no plans to have children anytime soon.
Using Dr Alice’s trademark dissections of animal parts, drawings and props, the female reproductive organs are explained. Dr Alice witnesses the birth of a baby girl, demonstrates the journey of a female egg once it leaves the ovary and examines some new scientific research which suggests that women advertise their most fertile times to men without even realising it.
In an episode about female reproductive health, with a focus on fertility, you would hope that a mention of something as common as PCOS would crop up!
First these wonderful proposals:
- I will fight for London’s rail commuters and campaign for longer trains, more frequent services and Oyster at all stations.
- The bendy bus is unsuitable for London’s streets, they are twice as dangerous as non-articulated buses and have almost three times the rate of fare evasion. I will phase out bendy buses and run a new competition to find a 21st century Routemaster that has full disabled access, runs on clean fuel and has conductors.
- I will introduce live, interactive bus tracking so you can see where your bus is and avoid long waits at the bus stop.
And now Boris wants all working Londoners to be paid a minimum of £7.45 an hour.
Hopefully a bit more effort will be put into this one than the Booze ban? I still see people drinking on the train without care.
So, according to the latest episode of Dispatches, we are being lied to from every corner of the lunch market. Cheap delis serve reconstituted meats, Pret a Manger (the website has a plain e so I will too) and Subway sell food with dangerously high levels of salt and fat in them (more salt in a meatball marinara than 9 packets of crisps) and street vendors/restaurants are free to put as much fat, seasoning, and processed GM food in their meals. In the one-hour lunch society, is our only option to starve through it? If we can’t even blend some fruit together before heading out in the morning (although 10 whole grams of fructose is hardly worth having a hypoglycaemic fit over), should we be demanding more hours in the day? Should we make like the French and work 10-7, just to fit it all in?
Because of that ovary thing, I scan the Pret a Manger and Nusa Kitchen websites before lunch every day to see what I can have, and even I was surprised to see that my favourite crayfish and rocket sandwich had massive amounts of starch and sodium in it.
Perhaps the real question is are we too naive to assume that just because something is “home made” or “real” that it’s virtuous all-round? Sushi and vegan food for the rest of the week, then? Surely you can’t muck up an organic vegetable soup or a piece of raw salmon….right?
Here’s what I had for lunch today (from Pret)
| Energy Values (kcal) per pack | 214 |
| Protein (g) per pack | 8.0 |
| Carbohydrate (g) per pack | 13.1 |
| - of which sugars(g) | 5.0 |
| Fat (g) per pack | 14.4 |
| - of which saturates (g) | 5.7 |
| Dietary Fibre (g) per pack | 12.1 |
| Sodium (g) per pack | 0.9715 |
| Average weight (g) per pack | 335 |
Only 214 calories and 13g of carbs in a whole meal? AND it’s gluten free? hmm.
The silver lining from this story: the US versions of Pret a Manger and Subway are even worse crimes against nutrition!
Hannah Waldram offers her favourite songs to commute to in today’s guardian online feed, including songs from Joy Division and Edith Piaf (read more | digg story). Why so morose? Surely the morning commute can’t be that depressing?
This prompted me to look into my own on-train listening habits. Save the morning Italian and French podcasts I listen to while waiting for the tram, new albums I have to listen to for writing, and Movies You Should See podcasts I listen to on the train home, my list seems a bit more upbeat, albeit aggressive:
1. Does That Offend You, Yeah? – Let’s Make Out
2. Mindless Self Indulgence – Shut Me Up
3. We Are Scientists – The Great Escape
4. Julie London – Fly Me to the Moon
5. Weezer – Troublemaker
Fairly contemporary, too!
…on fine form again last night.
“ROFLMAO” moments included:
- Cherie Blair put her autobiography out recently. Can you imagine what Gordon Brown’s Wife’s book is going to be like? It’ll be less eventful than Anne Frank’s.
- Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Whatever it is, it’s headed for the World Trade Centre
- What’s that Joker? You’ll be back? Somehow I don’t think you will be.
Why not, eh? £30 a year for all the music I can eat sounds cheap as chips. But then, there is the potential trap of British Gas-ising the entire system – switching music providers for the best deal year in year out. Ideally, I’d like to see a donation button on all musicians’ websites, where they payment can be directly related to the quality of music. Autolux recently did this on their site, and I donated £10, on account of illegally downloading Future Perfect and then falling in love with it.
Still not a bad solution.
