Filed under: television
There’s a new wiki page detailing topics and guests for the next series of QI.
Being the F series, there’s a forefeit anytime someone says the word “fuck” (this series’s elephant in the room), and panelists such as Dara O’Brian, John Sessions and David Mitchell return. Exciting new guests include:
Ben Miller
Marcus Brigstocke
Sir Terry Wogan
and…Emma Thompson!
Not so interesting additions are Pam Ayers and Hugh Dennis (and the band was…shut up.)
Filed under: food
Another quick foody note:
I lunched in Mayfair at Benihana on Tuesday. It’s a slightly posh-looking Teppanyaki place on Sackville Street with surprisingly modest prices. (Modest, perhaps because my only experience of these sorts of restaurants has been £50+ places in Leeds.) For £18 per person – their “monthly special” though I think they do this every month – you get a choice of two meats, hibachi rice and vegetables, soup, a california roll, and a salad, which is enough to feed even the greediest of eyes. Not bad at all, considering you get a bit of tabeside theatre beforehand.
Filed under: art
A mini belated review:
The Tate Britain on Millbank opened its leading autumn exhibition last week – a curation on Francis Bacon.
The layout is a little predictable – rooms organised by theme and time, and quite a lot of the more famous works, which usually live in New York’s MOMA, were omitted, meaning that the exhibition presented a spotty picture of Bacon’s works. Room 6, which focuses on where Bacon gets inspiration for his paintings, was a bit of a revelation. Artefacts ranged from images from artists he admired (like Van Gogh) to scribbles on notebooks, and even a bit of photography. Placed in the middle of the exhibition, it breaks up the stream of paintings which may otherwise lead visitors to see Bacon as something of a one-trick pony.
The exhibition is still a good introduction to the artist on show, but someone familiar with his paintings from permanent collections may prefer to take a quick visit to the gift shop instead.
Filed under: link
To the people using my addthis link via http://www.remmrit.com/ . Do leave us a comment with a link to your interweb spaces too!
In a scramble to find something to quench my crepe-y needs, I came across the website for My Old Dutch Pancake House in Holborn – a restaurant I’ve gone past on the bus at least once a week, but never noticed. As Mauritian heritage is part Dutch – they being one of the many nations to colonise the white-flag-waving country, it seemed like an ideal place to take the Mother Unit for lunch.
The concept is simple – traditional Dutch starters (a lot of meat and fried cheese, apparently) and crepes sweet and savoury, stuffed with everything under the sun – from ratatouille to a seafood feast, apple crumble to liqueur. Food is served on a massive – and full – 12 inch plate, whether it be a main or dessert, which makes it a fantastic restaurant for sharing and tasting.
With age comes cynicism, so here we go:
I got on a bus at Westminster today, heading towards, and terminating at, Aldwych. The bus driver zoomed past the bus stop at Aldwych - which is a three-lane one-way semicircle, for those of you unaware – and stops at the bus stand, on the other side of the road, before letting passengers off. As the bus only has doors on one end, the passengers – including a bunch of bewildered tourists and two tiny old ladies – were forced to get out in the middle of three lane traffic and dash across to Kingsway without being killed.
I also went to the Old Truman’s Brewery today – the first time I’ve ever been on a weekend when there hasn’t been a big exhibition on. I went into Absolute Vintage, looking for some vintage clothing. There was none, unless you count the 80s (which as someone who wrote their dissertation on historic fashion, I don’t). No frame bags, no non-nylon dresses, but 30s jazz coming out of the speakers. Very confusing. I have also now seen enough cowboy boots to last me a lifetime. The rest of the area was a little uninspiring too – apparently second-hand Atticus clothing and t-shirts with bullshit printed on them are cutting-edge now.
On the way back, I visited Lamb Street, to pop into the now flagship store of what has been one of my favourite retailers for years – FairyGothMother. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Now that their Camden store has shut down, I expected there to be a far wider range of stock in the Spitafields shop, and so was surprised to see a tiny range of corsets (less than 10 underbust styles, which is what I went there for in the first place) and a mere sprinkling of clothing. Their tried and tested collection had been severely downsized to make way for a hugely overpriced lingerie collection (£175 for a silk slip? No thanks!) and unnecessarily repetitive varieties of girdles and waist cinchers, which can be bought a lot cheaply just down the road, and to a more authentic pattern too. They have been increasingly trying to pander to the purse-belt-as-accessory crowd over the past couple of years, which is a shame.
Filed under: PCOS
A very interesting paper published recently by Australian Doctors Kidson and Talbot, and something very useful to take along to a naysaying GP!
Read here (.pdf format).
Filed under: Room 101
A lot of things annoy me. They will go here.
Why are people increasingly handing out receipts for the tiniest of purchases. They’re unnecessary, useless bits of paper that we just don’t need a lot of the time. An 85p carton of orange juice in M&S, or the 90 seconds between purchasing my smoothie at Old Street, and getting my drink – it’s just not necessary. Am I going to change my mind in those few seconds? Will you forget you served me? It’s up on CCTV, so there’s evidence! How many trees are pissed away by doing this? Half the time, we don’t even need a bag, but we’re given a receipt. They’re left to collect in pockets and handbags, and tipped into the bin at the end of the week.
Filed under: art
From the NME (sorry):
The original artwork of The Rolling Stones‘ famous ‘tongue and lips’ logo has been bought by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
Sold at auction in the US last week for $92,500 (£47,000), the artwork was bought by the museum with the aid of independent art charity The Art Fund, who stumped up half the cash.
The artwork is residing in the museum now.
Great! The V&A offerings have been a bit unstimulating this year, so the sooner they get this on show the better.
Filed under: comment, three things