Pancake flippin'-tastic!



Much whiskin', flippin' and scoffin' went on today at Chez Urban as we indulged ourselves in Pancake Day.

Shrove Tuesday (the day before Lent) has been celebrated for centuries in the UK.

The tradition comes from strict Christian Lenten rules which prohibited the eating of all dairy products, so folks used up their supplies of eggs, milk, butter and other fats in a great pancake feast before Lent.

Early English recipes used wheaten flour, eggs, butter or lard, a liquid (water, milk, ale or wine) and flavourings such as white or brown sugar, spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, or ginger), orange flower water, scented sugars or liqueurs.

But for today, we stuffed our faces with pancakes sprinked with maple syrup and lemon. Lovely!

Walking Regent's Park, London

Went for a stroll around a near deserted Regent's Park on Saturday.

There was a biting wind, but I had my Ricoh GR camera in my (frozen!) hand and some good sounds on my walkman to keep me warm.





I'll post up more soon!

Site updates.. London photos



Added a page about a Saturday stroll around a wintery London here.



Also new, a section about Cabman's shelters which are Victorian 'mini-cafes' for London cab-drivers.

Double whammy of Offlines

It's only Saturday morning and the strain is showing after two Offline nights!



On Thursday, I put on the first 'regular' Offline at Brixton JAMM - our new venue about ten minutes walk out of Brixton.

I was reluctant to leave the Dogstar - it's well known, in a perfect location and has lots of passing trade - but I couldn't face the monthly hassle with exploding PAs, zero publicity, ever-changing management and an overwhelming lack of interest in the night.

Which was all rather weird seeing as it was by far their busiest night in the week, bringing in huge crowds and some great acts.



So the whole shebang has been moved up to JAMM, a great venue with a fabulous PA and professional set up. Only trouble is that it's remote location means we're going to have to really ramp up the publicity to encourage people to take the walk up Brixton Road.



Still, I had a great night and managed to get some top notch drunken dance floor action at the end.

And yes, I really did play, "Paper Plane" by The Quo. Let. It. Rock!

More Offline pics

Last night was Offline at Birkbeck College where I suddenly found out that my DJ set was expanding from three hours to five! Luckily, I was well stocked with tunes and, once again, took full advantage of the outrageously cheap beer on offer.

Nice to see a group of Urbanites coming down to support the night (or just drink the cheap lager)...

And tonight... is PROD

Bring it on!

urban75 in the New Scientist!

Nice to see one of the threads on our bulletin board being reported in this esteemed science journal!

However, while engaged in some essential stochastic blue-sky research (otherwise known as idly surfing on company time) Feedback came across a discussion of possible mechanisms on the www.urban75.com bulletin boards. This confirms, anecdotally, that the phenomenon is as common in domestic South London as it is in labs in Melbourne. By far the most popular explanation on the site was "house faeries", though we rather like the proposals that "odd socks are seducing the spoons with stories of The Life That's Waiting Outside" and the more materialist "there's a bloke down East Street market that sells 'em on".

One contributor insists: "It is well known that teaspoons and Biros are alternate manifestations of the same underlying quantum object. Proof: when you attempt to observe one, all you see is the other. Obviously, there's a reflection of the fundamental asymmetry of the universe here too, because you can stir your tea with a Biro."

New Scientist

A walk through Bermondsey and Rotherhithe



We went for a lovely walk from central London to Rotherhithe on the weekend.

The amount of 'exec' developments is a bit depressing, but there's still parts that look like something out of the 1970s.



It's only matter of time before the place becomes one large row of 'lifestyle statements', so I recommend you get down there before it goes forever!



We also checked out the Brunel Engine House Museum in Rotherhithe, a small, out of the way affair that's worth a visit (but if you're the kind of person that demands lots of interactive knobs and levers that go, "Wheeeeee!", perhaps it's not for you.)

Bermondsey and Rotherhithe walk

A Saturday in London

A few snaps taken with a Ricoh GR Digital camera (currently on loan for review) on a winter's afternoon walk around central London.


At Trafalgar Sq there was a demonstration being held against the publication of the infamous 'cartoons'.


The beautiful interior of St Mary Le Strand - a gorgeous church marooned on a traffic island on The Strand.
St Mary le Strand website


The Roman' baths at 5 Strand Lane, WC2. An obscure National Trust property hidden away off the main drag, the baths that lurk behind the window as described by the NT as, "Remains of a bath - possibly Roman. Restored in the 17th century, believed to hold Roman origins"
National Trust


Inside the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. This piece by Rachel Whiteread is entitled EMBANKMENT and made from 14,000 casts of the inside of different boxes, stacked high.

What's it mean? Well, here's what the Tate website says, "The form of a cardboard box has been chosen because of its associations with the storage of intimate personal items and to invoke the sense of mystery surrounding ideas of what a sealed box might contain." Err, right. OK.


Browsers flip through the thousands of second hand books at the book stalls under Waterloo Bridge on the Southbank.
See panorama

Williamsburg/Brooklyn photos posted!

I'm slowly working through the hundreds of photos from my November NY trip and have just posted up 80+ pics taken in Brooklyn.
Manhattan shots to follow!





View the gallery here
Browse Brooklyn photos by thumbnail here

Williamsburg photos are up!



Well, actually, only a tiny handful are there so far (23), but I've made a start!

It's going to be a massive task - I took something like 1,200 photos during my November 2005 trip.
The law of averages means that there must be quite a few half-decent ones in there, so it's going to take a while to process and research them all.



This place is amazing. The City Reliquary is a sort of DIY "window museum" stuffed full of old bits of New York, including a chunk of metal off Williamsburg Bridge, old coins, a sand bucket, discarded false teeth, "an aquatic fruit found in the Hudson River" and a little bottle of soil taken from a small island in New York bay

The people behind the museum - who clearly don't take themselves too seriously - describe the City Reliquary as a "pleasant and safe place for people to gather, relax, disseminate information, and enjoy the comradery provided by a city of over eight million people."

They also put on community events ("Sidewalk receptions ") that look like a whole lot of fun. We like them.

The City Reliquary Museum

My new Williamsburg photos (more soon!)

Weekend round-up: football and marmalade makers

Saturday started early with a mad dash into town to grab a quick coffee and a cake at the Photographer's Gallery before hurtling around Tottenham Court Road with Em who was looking to buy a new laptop. Electronics fatigue soon set in, so she left clutching a handful of leaflets instead.



Then it was a train dahn sarf to The Ship boozer by Norwood Junction to meet up with the 1927 lads before watching the mighty Cardiff City play at Crystal Palace.



The game was alright, but what the fuck was all that bollocks going on at half time?



Some ludicrous "kick a ball into a shed to win a kitchen" competition (what?!) and a bunch of the lamest, US-wannabe cheerleaders doing the worst dancing I've ever seen.

Hello? This is the UK, not some fucking awful American football bullshit.



And they even did that really, really pathetic "let's play a burst of music when we score" shite. Awful.

But I liked the ground. I liked the fact that we didn't get hassled for standing up (once again, the entire Cardiff City crowd stood for the whole game) and the view was good too.

The game was tight. We had what appeared to be a perfectly good goal disallowed and Palace had a player sent off in mysterious circumstances.

Wasn't too impressed with the Palace part-time singing though. But it was still better than the Highbury Library.

A cunning combination of trains quickly got us to the 1927 club's 15th anniversary bash at the The Grouse & Claret in upmarket Belgravia (we soon lowered the tone) where many beers were sunk and I won a signed Cardiff City football in the lotto! Woohoo!

The evening wrapped up in the trusty Albert.




The next day, the sound of mass scraping, shredding and pan bashing told me that the urban75 craft club were in town, brewing up some delicious home made marmalade downstairs.

The weekend over, I've got to start sorting out the next few Offline nights, one this Friday at Birkbeck University and then a new night at the Brixton JAMM on the 23rd. Stay tuned!

urban75.net - nearly a million pages looked at every week!

Blimey, it's getting very busy around here!

In January 2006, the urban75.net domain - the bulletin boards - registered an amazing 3,737,275 page impressions (i.e. whole pages looked at) - that's nearly a million pages a week!

Combing the two domains (.net and .org) gives us the astonishing figure of 5,753,864 page impressions for the month - nearly 1.5 million/week and over 200,000 per day.

Here's the stats for January 2006:

urban75.net (January 2006)
unique visitors: 87,372
Number of visits: 184,791
Page impressions: 3,737,275
Hits: 18,731,406

Bulletin Board stats (January 2006)
New posts: 134,115
New threads: 3,956
New members: 910

urban75.org (January 2006)
unique visitors: 248,302
Number of visits: 342,248
Page impressions: 2,016,589
Hits: 39,828,200

My New York Photos Are Pants!



Some time ago a Swedish company asked if they could licence some of my photos for an underwear range.

I forgot all about them until I received a package containing no less than two pairs of underpants, two vests and a curious pair of longjohns, all with my photos on!

I like 'em!

Salming undies firm