Other London Graffiti

Whilst out looking for Banksys I also found the following.




This one is stunning and is near the White Cube in Hoxton. There used to be another Banksy Maid here but to be honest I prefer this one!

Is that Andre the Giant?


The tiled UFOs are starting to appear all over London too and in the same places as Banksy pieces.


Random stencils around Rivington Place in Shoreditch.


OK, so its not strictly graffiti, just random chalk scrawlings but still amusing.




Another Andre


These are across the road from the hidden Apache Gunship piece.

OK, no graffiti here but whilst I was looking for the Angel (its behind me) people were leaving the Aquarium club and the 2 guys running away had gotten into an argument with about half a dozen Arabs. They would get the chase then turn and beat up the first person to catch them then run off. Lying on the ground just to the right of the bus stop is the first guy they knocked out. An interesting tactic, which worked. The guy was all over the place and had to be draped over the railings by his mates to get his breath back.


A couple of pieces that surround the Chalk Farm Maid.


A stunning piece in Notting Hill. I have no idea who it is though.

Some more Banksy pieces

Back in December I thought I'd go and find some more Banksy pieces that I'd ever missed on my big tour or that had appeared since that.
This one made a bit of press as he was photographed by a passer-by whilst doing it. Fortunately the media didn't make a big deal about it. Perhaps they like the mystery aspect to Banksy too! This one is on Pollard Street in Hackney and I think its the first time he's done something with the yellow lines.

I like the cheeky stencil added later :)

This one is in North London opposite Chalk Farm station. It's been around for a while but its a little out of the way from the majority of his pieces. There used to be a rat up the hill from here but its no longer there, which would have saved me a mini-walk trying to find it had I known.

This one took me 2 days to find as the instructions were pretty vague and the best my research could give me was a street in the vicinity but not the actual street. I can only assume the website was being intentionally vague to stop people attacking it. Only on the Sunday after combing the area did I find it. To save anyone else from wasting a day have a look on Shafton Road north of Victoria Park in Hackney.

The same stencil was also used to do this one over in West London near Portobello Rd Market in Notting Hill. This one made the news as the owner of the wall on which it is painted made £200,000 from its sale. A shrewd business move! He also preserved it by having a clear acrylic screen fastened over the top, which is what the circles are.

This one was found at the Mount Pleasant Post Office in Farringdon. This was one that I'd missed and is close to the cash machine grabbing the young girl, which I did get a while back, although not on the big walk. If it looks dark its because I took this at 6 in the morning following an overnight shift at work. I wasn't quite ready for bed when it ended (too much red bull) so I thought I'd go for a walk to find this. In the same taurine boosted morning I walked all the way to Debenhams on Oxford Street and bought a PS3 and Bravia TV! I love overnights!

I'd missed this one on the big walk and I almost missed it on this occasion. Hidden behind the billboard you can just make out one of his Apache helicopters with ribbons.

And rather more worryingly I missed this one too. It used to have the Pulp Fiction and then Banana Costumed Pulp Fiction pieces but now has this poignant angel.

I'm doing alright in finding the London ones but there are still more to get, then I'm off to Bristol to try to do the same there.

Geek Fest...the pictures

Here are the pictures from the geekfest night.

This is some bizarre exhibit where you're encouraged to put your head into the boxes, and in interacting become part of the art. Your picture is picked up on camera and shown elsewhere around the room.

This wasn't one of the participants in the fancy dress competition. X-Box were sponsoring the event and I think this guy was part of that promotion.

Is it Bub or Bob? It also blew bubbles with the aid of a bubble making machine built into the mouth.

The worst costume of them all, made from two gym balls and some black tape. A pokeball!! But at least she still made the effort.

I thought this was another proper dressed up person but it was actually someone's costume.

Grim Fandango watches one of the Tentacle monsters. He looks like a business man with a rolled up piece of paper over his head.

Again, I thought this was a company costume, but no, someone really did have the dog from Zelda outfit at home.


It was the Pokeball that won the competition. Not really, tentacle won the prize.



Chinese guy who is really good on the piano. He can even play the Windows shut down jingle....geek!

Silent Disco at the Tate Modern

The latest Silent Disco (I say latest but this was back in 2007) took place at the Tate Modern's Turbine Gallery.

The crack in the floor is actually the main exhibit at the Gallery. Called Shibboleth and constructed by Doris Salcedo, its apparently a statement on racism but to just about everyone there it's a crack dug into the floor.

and an obstacle on what was going to be a pretty large dancefloor.




I can only imagine the balloon is a marker to friends arriving later, in the same way people put flags on their tents at festivals.



Yet again, a bit of a chuckle and a decent sized crowd. These events seem to becoming more and more popular!

Where have I been?

OK, so I've not been posting too much, mostly because PC (woe)rld have had my machine in for a repair for the last 6 weeks, and only seem to begin working on it when I kicked up a stink. Whilst it's in there I'm taking the opportunity to have it upgraded too, so all being well this time next week I'll have a 4gig monster with a decent graphics card (the 6600 that was in there was good but I've asked to go up to an 8800).

Whilst I've been away I've found some more Banksy pieces, which I'll post up. I've also gotten into the clubbing thing again with some excellent nights over the last week. I'll be testing myself this weekend as I have an all nighter on Friday followed by an all day event starting Saturday afternoon.

Plenty of red bull will be needed I think.

Hitman

Shitman more like!! This film is awful and whilst I started the year with the best movie of 2007 (Smoking Aces if you're interested) I finish with the worst. The plot makes no sense, they rely on footage taken from TV shows to save money (the opening sequence may be familiar to fans of Dark Angel) and the acting is wooden.

I would try to explain the plot but I'm not going to waste the energy.

Just don't see this film.

Oh, and what kind of a name is Timothy Olyphant anyway?

Beowulf

I AM BEOWULF

So shouts the computer graphic version of Sean Bean (I guess he dropped out after the graphics had been done to be replaced by Ray Winstone). Its the old british poem of a warrior who faces his demons, quite literally.

A pretty decent film actually. You soon see past the computer graphics, in much the same way you accepted the humans in the Shrek movies very easily. It has to be said that Final Fantasy had set the bar for animated realistic humans but this film surpasses that, particularly towards the end with the older characters complete with greying beards and battle scars.

Angelina's role is nothing but a cameo. There was a little hype surrounding her part but as is ever the case it's unjustified.

Some nice set pieces particularly the battle with Grendel and the finale with the dragon.

As is the norm with Hollywood the original story is adapted. In the original the female demon is beheaded by Beowulf, but in the film he sleeps with her, and there's more to the dragon in the film than in the original tale. So whilst its a shame that the uneducated will now be misinformed as to the original tale I'd like to think it'll at least prompt to go and check it out. The twisting of the story isn't as bad as that film that made out it was the Americans who captured the Enigma Machine during WWII.

Oh, and there are some cinemas showing this in 3D. I really recommend trying to see it like this. The film uses it pretty well and yes you get the obligatory spear into the crowd shot! There's a great piece with a pointed flag pole and near rectal impaling that had every laughing.

This has been the only film I've seen this year where the audience applauded at the end, albeit only a smattering. Whilst I liked it, I wouldn't go that far.

Eastern Promises

Its a film about Russian Gangsters in London, Covent Garden in fact. I've not seen any Russians there, other than tourists. Perhaps they're super secret and only let film cameras in.

Yeah, it was OK. Not remarkable really except for the fight in the swimming baths, which was pretty tough going and what you'd expect from Cronenbourg.

Rent it, or steal it, from a Russian of course!

Saw 4

It's Halloween again, time for kids to go trick-o-treating, early launches of fireworks and Jigsaw to reveal more traps on another bunch of hapless souls. But he died at the end of the last movie so how can he be in this one? Well that gets answered at the end, along with some of the questions left unanswered from the previous movie, in particular what was on the tape that Jigsaw covered with wax before he was killed.

Well this time around we have a SWAT team leader, and former team mate of Kelly who lost her ribs in the last movie. He is chosen to undergo a new series of games featuring more ingenious torture devices.

The Saw franchise really splits the public in half just like marmite. You either love it or you hate it. I love it, I think it put a fresh twist on a stale genre. This film isn't as tight as the predecessors, due to a new writing team, and knowing there's going to be another 2 films after this they've left more questions unanswered, which will no doubt be answered in them.

So, if you've seen 1,2 & 3 then you'll be going to see this too regardless of what I say.
If weren't interested in them, then you won't be in this either.
However if you're thinking of watching them now, don't start with this one; you need to watch the other ones first or a lot of it won't make sense.

Geek Fest in London

There's a week long computer game festival taking place in London this week and as part of the launch activities the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank put on a concert using their Philarmonia Orchestra (not to be confused with the Philarmonic) to play the music of various video games. Yup, completely geeky!!

Starting with an opening segment covering the history of gaming including the music of Out Run, Asteroids, Pong etc they moved through away from the electronic blips and bleeps towards full orchestral scores that can be found in today's games such as Halo, Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy. Rather unfortunately they focused on arcade games and consoles and so totally overlooked the music of Rob Hubbard, who had quite a following in the days of Commodore 64s and Spectrums.

Most of the pieces came from the orchestra and choir and a small number from a very good chinese piano player who goes by the name the video game pianist. The best pieces for me were Metal Gear and Zelda, although quite a lot of people in the audience were going crazy for Halo and the Final Fantasy stuff. One guy sounded like he was having an orgasm he was enjoying it too much. I will admit to not knowing all the tunes but that's probably because I don't have an X-Box or go crazy over everything Bill Gates does (He had quite a following at this event based on the cheering).

There was also a fancy dress competition, and some people did actually bother dressing up; some costumes better than others I might add. I did get pics but untill I get my desktop back I can't upload them on here.

A good evening but by quite a long way the most geekiest event I've ever been to, and it was also the first sell out show at the newly re-opened festival, which I have to say has some amazing acoustics in there now, so expect to see the show come back here next year.

My desktop has died!!!

Got home on Friday to find my PC on but the keyboard not working. When I tried the usual "switch it off, switch it on" fix the machine refused to start up. So it's now off with PC World to be repaired, it looks like one of the boards has gone as the power light comes on but I don't get anything put out to the monitor nor can I hear the start up sounds. At least the data is alright so all being well the PC World people will have no need to do anything with the software (I'm a little worried the paperwork you sign says that they might clear data off the machine, it shouldn't be needed in my instance).

Every cloud has a silver lining and it does mean that I finally got my new laptop out of its box. I bought it months ago when it was on offer and haven't had a reason to get it out til now (I'm on about the PC). The other advantage is that I've finally enabled the wi-fi in the flat. As I type this I'm still in bed, so I now know that my already lazy life has taken a step in the "more lazy" direction.

When PC World do get back to me, I will probably get the machine upgraded to become a media centre PC rather than a desktop as I can see this mobile computing taking over. I have plans to get a new TV and PS3 so I should be able to hook the desktop up to that. I could then remove the computer desk from the living room, giving me more space.

Underworld @ Roundhouse

Underworld, most famous for their "Lager Lager Lager" Born Slippy track played 3 nights at Camden's Roundhouse and I was fortunate enough to have friends who had a spare ticket to one of them. They were a band I had wanted to see for some time, and the last of the big dance acts of the last 10 years to see (I'd already seen Orbital, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy & Leftfield).

They have a new album out and they played some during their 2 hour set, but based on those I don't think I'll be buying it. It was the older tunes that got the crowd going more and which were more danceable, in particular Rez, which even now still sounds great. I think not having Darren Emerson in the line-up has changed the direction the group has taken.

But it was still a great night, if a bit packed and sweaty. But that's expected when you decide to dance near the front.

B-Boy Championships 2007

My annual hip-hop pilgrimage took me to two locations this year. Previously the event has taken place at the same venue with the full contests being split over the two days. This year the organisers tried making things a bit different using the first day as the qualifiers for the finals on the Sunday. Saturday would take place in Hackney and the Sunday at it's usual home of Brixton Academy.

Day 1 was actually pretty good, the only downside was that the event was split over a number of rooms so there was no way to see everything. I chose to spend most of my time in the main room, which was holding the solo and popping qualifiers. The smaller rooms were holding toprock, beatbox battles etc. The advantage of seeing the qualifiers is that you get to see more people who are good but not that good to be seen on the main day including some French guy called Sebastian who had amazing upper body strength, but that's all he had hah!
I've found a couple of clips that show highlights of day 1 here and here. Sebastian is the freaky looking guy in the oversized shirt at the end of the clip.

Day 2 was great and the atmosphere had moved from the smaller classic feel to the large event.
In the popping battle it was great to see Salah finally win. He's been a people's favourite every time he's taken part in the contest but has always become runner up I can only assume because he avoids the fundamentals that the judges are looking for. The locking was won by a Japanese duo. The solos were won by a Dutch guy called Menno and in the finale, the team battles were won by Korea, in a great battle (here and here) with the Russians.

As ever a great weekend and only now after the last 12 years is the event starting to get the coverage and publicity it deserves. CNN were there this year, and that can be seen on the event's website here.

Right Brain v Left Brain | Herald Sun

This is quite a bizarre experiment. I think though they've got the functions the wrong way around. Being quite analytical it makes no sense for it to spin clockwise for me, which it seemed to do all the time until I got home from a night out and it decided to spin the other way.Right Brain v Left Brain | Herald Sun

Wilhelm Scream

You've probably heard of this just not realised. PANDACHUTE.COM