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We pay homage to one of London’s finest clubs, which closed a few years ago.
WARNING: this feature includes some seriously shocking hairstyles and yours truly clad in vast amounts of leather and PVC.
Here’s a few examples:
See the full horror here: Gossips Club, Dean Street, London W1
It’s taken me ages to get around to finishing it, but here’s my full review of this fabulous little camera:
Panasonic Lumix LX3 Digital Camera Review
Is this the king of the high-end digicam cams?
(© urban75, 20th February 2009)
Panasonic’s flagship digital compact for mustard-keen photographers and compulsive shutter clickers, the Lumix DMC-LX3 offers up a tempting package.
Lurking within its bijou lines is an 10.1 Megapixel resolution sensor, flash hotshoe, full auto and manual controls and an optically stabilised, bright 2.5x optical wide angle zoom with the drool-inducing LEICA name.
We had another rip roaring night of fun at the Brixton Albert on Friday. Here’s a few photos from the drunken mayhem:
Offline fave Anchorsong, does his electronic wizardry.
There was certainly no lack of rock and roll attitude from The Tenets, with a somewhat volatile onstage interaction between the members adding a bit of extra grit to proceedings!
We’ve got some really amazing Offline nights coming up soon: check out the listings here
We’ve always been fans of this venue under the Tavistock Hotel on Bedford Way by Russell Square, so when we were invited by some lovely friends to come down on a Saturday night, we made it a date.
Unfortunately, they’d hired out one of the private karaoke rooms and were all squashed into a little room with a flickering LCD screen screen displaying the lyrics. The sound was truly dreadful even before the drunken singing started up, so we discretely shuffled our way out to the busy dance floor and bar.
There was an excellent rock and roll band playing onstage as well as some performance.
Here’s a few camera phone snaps from the evening. We had a ball!
Cardiff fans aren’t angels, but we certainly know how to party!
Here’s the view from the terraces after we were thumped 4-0 by Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.
As the final whistle blew, the Cardiff end erupted to a chorus of “Let’s all have a disco!”.
Arsenal were as silent as ever throughout the game.
This morning, photographers and filmmakers – and the political activist and comedian Mark Thomas – gathered in their hundreds outside New Scotland Yard to exercise their democratic right to take a photograph in a public place.
The event was in defiance of Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act 2008 which became law today.
The new legislation gives the police powers to arrest photographers for taking and publishing a picture of a cop if the police decide that it is ‘likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.’
Please sign!
Currently there is no minimum requirement for train operators to carry bicycles and each operator has a different set of rules and booking procedures. This makes the system extremely complex to use, especially where multiple operators are used. Its not possible to book bicycle reservations online and hence one does not know whether there will be room for a bike on a train when a ticket is purchased (note, advanced tickets cannot subsequently be altered to a train with available bicycle carriage space). Some operators have extremely poor provision.
The Crosscountry service has reduced the capacity of its trains from 4 bicycles per train to 2 bicycles (so they can provide secure accomodation for their retail trolly). Hence, a maximum of 2 people can travel together with bicycles when you using the crosscountry service (a major element of the national network). Clearly, a national policy is required with a fully integrated booking system (that is available online through the standard ticket retailers) and incentives/requirements for operators to improve capacity.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/bikes-on-trains/
Discussion on urban75: here
The legend of the London Stone has attracted tourists from all over the world, most of who we’d imagine must be a little disappointed when they get to see the thing.
Said to be the spot from which the Romans measured all distances in Britannia, the London Stone can be found shoved into the side of a disused sports shop on Cannon Street, in the City of London.
Set within a carved stone surround and decorative iron grill (a Grade II listed structure), the London Stone has played a big part in London’s history, being recognised as the symbolic authority and heart of the City of London for hundreds of years.
For centuries, the Stone was the place to be if you were in the mood to forge deals, swear a few oaths or make an official proclamation or two.
Jack Cade, leader of the 1450 revolt against Henry VI, followed tradition by banging his sword against the Stone after his forces entered London, declaring himself the ‘Lord of the City’ straight after.
Queen Elizabeth I’s adviser and occultist, John Dee, went ever further, believing that it had magic powers, while William Blake reckoned that the stone had been part of a druid altar.
The Stone is now somewhat diminished in size – it’s barely more than a shapeless lump of stone, to be honest – and was originally sited in the middle of Cannon Street.
Before that it was set into the wall of St Swithin’s Church, managing to survive the church’s bombing in the Second World War intact.
According to folklore, London’s safety is linked to the Stone, with a myth saying that the stone was part of an altar built by Brutus of Troy, the legendary founder of London: “So long as the stone of Brutus is safe, so long shall London flourish”.
With the store that houses the stone due to be demolished, the Stone will make its final journey to the London Museum.
A Saturday walk around a sunny, but freezing cold, central London:
Get the full story behind these pics here: London street and river scenes
Offline faves and cheeky scampsters Milk Kan have just released their new video, with some of the footage shot at their excellent Offline gig a few weeks ago.
Nice one lads!
I embarked on a chilly seven mile walk around central London today (photos coming soon!), and managed to grab a few more photos of gas lamps still in use.
Expect more soon!
Feature here: London’s gas lamps
Well, not quite, but I hope you’ll find this comparison interesting:
c. 1883
A wintery scene on Brixton Road, looking north from the junction with Acre Lane, showing the roads under snow. You can see the pub sign advertising the ‘Prince of Wales’ public house to the centre right, with the Balls Omnibus Office partly visible on the right. (pic: Lambeth Archives)
Feb 2009
I’d waited ages to get a scene wintery enough to match the 1883 one, but on the night of the 1st/2nd February, London was hit by one of the biggest snow storms for nearly twenty years. As soon as I saw the snow coming down, I hotfooted it out and captured this scene some time after midnight.
You can see that the building line has been brought forward, with the Prince of Wales/Dex Club (with KFC below) now much closer to the camera.
Rising temperatures saw a lot of the snow melt over the day, but there was still enough around by the evening to give Brixton a wintry look. Woohoo!
I’m still loving ‘the heaviest snowfall for a decade and a half’ and simply had to go out for a stroll this afternoon to take some more pics!
More pics: Brixton walk in the snow
It might have been well past midnight but I couldn’t resist going for a late night crunch through the crisp snow outside!
Here’s a few photos from my walk around Brixton. It was lovely!
More here: A snowy night in Brixton
