GUM #2

#2

CONTENTS

––– #06 PEOPLE

#16 TRAVEL

#23 INDUSTRY

#36 FEATURES

#50 REVIEWS

#64 RANDOMS

CONTRIBUTORS

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Editorial Team Jade Bisram Stuart Hallybone Steven Parker Nick Parnell Katharine Weguelin Design and Art Direction Peter Stitson Contributors James Armstrong Sally Bedwood Jade Bisram Vicky Clarfelt Hannah Dixon Phil Dowgierd Robert Fein Rob Forshaw Amardip Guram Stuart Hallybone Karen Iles Clare Kneeshaw Sundeep Kumar Bob Lloyd

Robert Moore Finbarr Notte Steven Parker Nick Parnell Paul Robinson Rowan Rosser Jason Ruddy Peter Stitson Howard Stredwick Pete Van Lanschot Anna Watkins NatashaWebb Katharine Weguelin James Woods

Grand Union Moray House 23-31 Great Titchfield Street London W1W 7PA t: +44(0)20 7908 0700 f: +44(0)20 7908 0701 info@thegrandunion.com www.thegrandunion.com

THE EDITORS

PARNELL

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PARKER < Why I love Parnell I love the way he matches his socks and pocket square. I love the fact that he takes a tour of the office no fewer than fifteen times a day to grace people with his presence. I love the way he touches his knob when he talks to Sally. I love the way he Facebooks a new jailbait girl from Louisiana every day. I love the way he sits, legs spread wide, in Client meetings telling all and sundry he was one of the internet’s founding fathers.

Most of all, however, I love Parnell because he’s just that bit fatter than me.

< Why I Love Parker I love his flowing locks, his undersized t-shirts, his pointy cock and pixie shoes (not the ones he has to borrow off Harvey!). I love his impatience, his fidgeting, his interrupting and his elevated status of PLANNER. I love the fact he has to highlight every bit of text as he reads it, his need to own every conversation and his determination not to reach the age of 30 through the consumption of cigarettes and booze!

But most of all, I love Parker because, however hard he tries, he will never be as cool as me, sorry Steve, but it’s just how the cookie crumbles!

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COVER ARTIST PROFILE ––– IAIN HECTOR

Profile: Graduated in 2003 with a degree in graphic design. Since then worked as a graphic designer dealing mainly in print design – logos, corporate identity, branding, typography and layout. In November 2008 attended a workshop at Print Club in Dalston, which introduced him to screen printing. Selected to be included in the 2009 Secret Blisters show. www.iainhector.com

Flat

Donkey King

Do

Look

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This editions’ cover is by Iain Hector, a London based print artist and graphic designer. He is a member of Print Club London along with our magazine designer Peter who designed our inaugural cover, ‘Making it up as we go long.’ As we work in digital the majority of what we do is in an abstract form; with GUM we are creating something tangible because the editorial team liked the idea of using print designs as a consistent theme for each cover we produce.

I was introduced to Iain’s work at the Secret Blisters show, which featured 42 print artists and had a final day auction of the first edition of each print. Steve, Nick, Linds and I went along to auction, needless to say as soon we walked in Steve and Nick’s arms couldn’t stay by their sides and both walked away with a new art collection in a matter of minutes. The work Iain showed there was ‘Mrs. Robinson, You’re Trying To Seduce Me. Aren’t You?’ I was drawn to the juxtaposition of the budgie head on Dustin Hoffman’s body and wondered if this had any further relevance, but as Iain’s own words explain below this is more a matter of aesthetics and humour.

If any of the prints take your eye, check out his website - http://www.iainhector.com What is your inspiration? The subject matter of my print work has largely been inspired by popular culture – cinema, film posters, song lyrics, photography and pop art. My background is in graphic design rather than illustration so the style of my work tends to be quite a bold graphic aesthetic, often with an emphasis on typography or simple geometry or pattern.

What do you like about print as a form of art/expression? As somebody whose job often involves sitting in front of a computer for 8 hours a day, the handson element of screen printing is one of the biggest appeals. There is just something nice about being able to get your hands dirty and creating something tactile. I think it’s really important as a graphic designer to understand the print process, and screen printing is certainly a very involved and time-consuming process.

You need a lot of patience. I also like the fact that people from many different backgrounds and disciplines – be they illustrators, graffiti artists, painters, animators or typographers – have embraced the medium to create really great work. This was really apparent in the recent Secret Blisters exhibition.

What’s the relevance behind the animal theme? The idea behind the animal head series is to take iconic or highly recognisable images from popular culture and give them a twist. It started with the Reservoir Dogs print in which the chosen animal is fairly obvious. At other times, there is no relevance. My decision is based purely on what I think looks right or happens to amuse me sufficiently. For example, I tried putting a hamster’s head on Dustin Hoffman for The Graduate poster, but when it came down to it, the budgerigar just looked more comfortable on that body! Like it was just meant to be that way. Opinion seems to be divided on whether these illustrations are a bit dark and twisted, or are fun and lighthearted… which I quite like.

The ‘flat’ (architectural) print on your site looks photographic. Is this intentional? (reminds me of an Andreas Gursky photo) I am a keen photographer, and can often be found walking around London at the weekend with either my DSLR or my old Russian lomo. A recurring theme in my photos is architecture (or architectural details). I seem to be drawn to large (often ugly) structures like blocks of flats or office towers, and the repeated elements within them that form patterns The print of the block of flats that I have done is taken from a photograph I took in Dalston. I have an idea to do another similar print, with each edition varying slightly by having different details, such as objects in the windows, or people on the balconies – bringing each one to life in a different way.

Mrs. Robinson, You’re Trying To Seduce Me. Aren’t You?

What work/ projects you have coming up? I am currently working on some animal hybrids that are similar to the animal head prints, except they are simply combinations of two unrelated animals. The first one has the head of a labrador and the body of a hippopotamus. It’s called a labrapotamus. I also want to do some work where I completely avoid using a computer. As my hand-drawing skills are fairly limited, I thought it would be interesting to use found objects to expose directly onto a screen to create silhouetted shapes. In collaboration with some other print makers going by the collective name Bozo Unit, I also have plans to sell prints from a stall on Broadway Market. And obviously somewhere further down the line, it would be nice to be able to put on an exhibition of my work.

By Jade Bisram

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PEOPLE

UX NEWS ––– THE NUMBER 5

Have you strolled past the UX department recently and wondered ‘what’s with all the new additions to the team?’

Well, the fact that the team now numbers five may not be a coincidence.

“I’ve always wanted to head up my very own boy band,” Robert ‘Big Daddy’ Fein reveals.

“Five is just the perfect number. If you think about the all time greats such as The Monkees, to modern day groups like N Sync and The Backstreet Boys, it’s no coincidence that they all number five.”

It has been announced that the group have finally started writing their debut album, following several marathon sessions spent trying to diagrammatically visualise song concepts, while debating the merits of

different approaches to the creative process. Working track titles are rumoured to include ‘User Journey of Love’, ‘Boxes + Arrows = Fun’, ‘Low Fidelity Loving’, ‘Arduino on the Run’, ‘Card Sort Shakedown’, ‘Hey Baby, I Like Your Task Flows’, ‘Brainstorm Breakdance’ and ‘Hits from the Wireframe Bong’.

When asked what he thinks will make the group stand out from the pack, the Rasputin-esque svengali figure remains guarded, “One thing I can reveal is that we’ve got a unique combination of personality types. There’s the heartthrob (me), the bad boy (Pete), the cheerful one (Dave), the serious introspective one (Howard) and, of course, the older brother figure (Sunny).”

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Sonos, beautiful beautiful Sonos. It is a light in our working lives, giving us music and melody to accompany us as we toil over costs, briefs, spreadsheets and presentations. But what do we listen to? Who is the most popular artist at Grand Union? How has it changed?

GUM presents the all-time top ten, the movers and shakers and our collective musical heroes.

All time Top 10 The biggest surprise is the absence of Ladyhawke’s “My Delirium”, a song played to death once upon a time (it’s at number 23). Also no space for Kings of Leon (Use Somebody comes in at 141).

The number 1 is predictable for those who’ve been here a year or more and is almost entirely the work of Vicky Clarfelt.

1. MIA - Paper Planes 2. Simian Mobile Disco - Hustler 3. Daft Punk - Technologic 4. Mylo - Drop the Pressure 5. Yello - Bostich 6. The Prodigy - Omen 7. Kano - I’m ready 8. Holy Fuck - Lovely Allen 9. Florence and the machine - Dog Days 10. Yes - Owner of a lonely heart

OFFICE ––– SOUNDTRACK

For the full chart go to - http://bit.ly/MM0MR Biggest movers “Dog Days” - Florence and the Machine It’s got all its airtime in the last 3 months. Expect it to be number 1 next time round.

“In for the kill” – La Roux Continuing our painful predictability, this is the 3rd most listened to track in the last 3 months, and 1st if you count all the remixes.

“Untitled” – Gas Ambient German minimal is the biggest track from the last 7 days. We had to look it up. Who is playing this?

Hands up…

You can see the most played tunes for the last 7 days here - http://bit.ly/gb6w0 Our favourite bands Some solace to be had here. Our number one band is Blur, and by quite a way – 130 more listens than their nearest rival, The Cure. Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys and The Smiths complete the top 5, which just goes to show that electronica acts with colourful back stories may come and go, but British guitar bands are here to stay.

See the full list of all our favourite bands here http://bit.ly/dYn5C

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PEOPLE

T H E

BA SIC S

OF

Boozing BY

A N NA

WAT K I N S

2 0 0 9

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S

OME OF YOU MAY KNOW THAT I SPANKED MY

youfund on a wine tasting course. Not that I had hopes of trotting along to see Mohammed to order some fine wines or doing the trolley dash on the top shelf in Majestic. More with the hope of buying a decent bottle for under a tenner and having a vague clue of where to place the finger on the wine list, without resorting to the two notches below the house wine option.

For six weeks, I diligently spent every Monday evening drinking fine wine under the guidance of Tim Atkin, the Observer wine critic no less. A fun floral shirted type with a glad eye for the wine and ladies. Fine credentials by my book.

Although a little hazy, I thought it was worth sharing a few of his basic tips. So for this issue we’ll start with the basics of tasting.

Wine appreciation The good news is that if you can smell you will be able to taste wine. Apparently a quarter of us are ‘super tasters’, an elite group whose tongue is jam packed with more taste-buds than the rest of us, the majority of whom are women. Different theories exist as to why women come out on top, but my particular favourite is that while men were out slaying beasts, women were back in the cave, sniffing the food to check it was within the sell by date and suitable kill for the kids to gobble down for tea.

The appreciation of wine is entirely one person’s opinion; one man’s Liebfraumilch is another’s man’s Pouilly-Fumé.

Taste, as with fashion, is subjective.

The art of tasting This came as a complete surprise to me, but whatever you do don’t neck the glass, however tempting it may be. Look, smell and savour the wine and then if it takes your fancy go for it and swig the lot. Apparently it’s very much like sex; however tempting the quick leg over is, it’s ultimately forgettable and over in seconds. Sustained appreciation it appears is the key to long-lasting satisfaction.

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PEOPLE

Appearance As with dating, first impressions really do count.

Firstly, hold your glass up against a white background - an A4 sheet from the printer will do nicely – and keep your beady eyes alert for three things: brightness, clarity and depth of colour (colour at the heart of the wine as well as the rim).

The colour will vary depending on the age of the wine as well as the grape variety, oak usage and grape ripeness. Whites vary from water white through to yellow-brown, and reds from purple and red through to brown.

Key to note is that while whites gain in colour as they age, reds seem to lose theirs. As Pope John XXIII once said: “Men are like wine - some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.”

Smel l ( bouquet, a roma, nose) It’s no revelation that smell is the most important factor for the wine taster, so don’t attempt to have a go at wine tasting with a blocked nose or after a night out on the tiles. Smell is strongly linked to memory which explains why the sense of smell is often the first thing to go with Alzheimer sufferers.

Start with a good sniff (without swirling the wine) and look for cleanliness, intensity and character. Followed by a good swoosh round of the glass - apparently this isn’t an affectation, but important to aerate the wine and let it breathe, in order for the aromas to circulate and the flavour to flow. Think of that full throttle blast of Lynx Azure when your man has just stepped out the bathroom. Then think again. Finally let it settle and diffuse, before approaching with caution.

After a fair amount of practice you should be able to pick out these common aromas, all of which are important when it comes to matching them to grape varieties and giving you an indication of whether a wine is for you or not: Floral: violets, roses, honeysuckle, jasmine Fruity: strawberry, cherry, blackcurrant, peach, lychee, apricot, pineapple, apple, gooseberry, fig, apple, lemon Herbaceous/vegetative: green pepper, asparagus, olive, mint, eucalyptus, tobacco, mushroom, earth, grass Spicy: liquorice, pepper, nutmeg, ginger

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Oaky/caramelised: pine, vanilla, smoke, butter, honey, nuts, chocolate, coffee, soy There are a whole host of terms used by ‘cork dorks’ flabby, goaty, foxy, sweaty, hot – so don’t feel shy when it comes to your descriptions, express yourself with abandon as indeed many have done: ‘the sumo wrestler’s jockstrap’ and ‘ideal for the lingering dinner guest’ being amongst my favourites.

Spit or swallow Finally you get to taste your little beauty. There are five basic tastes you should be on the lookout for: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami (savoury).

Taste buds cluster around your mouth in groups. Sweetness at the front, bitterness at the back, acidity on the sides and salty things all over the surface but mainly at the front.

So take a good slug of wine, but don’t swallow immediately.

Coat your palate and give a good old slurp to aerate the wine – suck it in and out, gargle with it, play with it, whatever takes your fancy, although possibly within the privacy of your own home. Apart from the actual flavours, try to look out for alcohol levels (the more really is the merrier), tannin, concentration, complexity, depth and overall balance.

Spitting is of course always optional – and more often than not preferential.

S o wh at’s t he p oi nt?

Aside from drinking copious amounts of wine in the name of self-improvement, if you can start to recognise the style, smell and flavour of certain wines you’ll begin to build up a picture of the grape varieties you like. In time you will have a little more confidence when selecting your wine rather than grabbing an over-priced Jacob’s Creek off the shelf.

Most importantly ignore the wine snobbery that runs alongside wine tasting - says the one who thought that Blue Nun was in fact ‘a cheeky little pudding wine’ in a blind tasting…

So until the next issue, just one word of warning: ‘Wine and wenches empty men’s purses’ – English Proverb.

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PEOPLE

3 FILMS + A Creating a little corner of Africa, in the middle of England.

Our recent shoot for Heinz sauces had as much going on behind the camera, as it did in front of it. On the first morning, when breakfast hadn’t arrived, frantic calls were made and a strange story about the catering truck and a fatal accident started to emerge. We still don’t know if any of it was true, or just another creative way to stretch the budget a bit further.

Maybe it was because we were all worrying about the caterer, that we didn’t notice the entire wardrobe dept (a B&Q striped gazebo with the actors’ clothes in) being stolen. Eventually, after a visit from the boys in blue and some amateur sleuthing by the producer, it was discovered in a truck parked nearby.

Anyway, the films are now finished and you can see

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A FUNERAL

They say never work with children or animals. Here, we try both.

them at secretabilities.com. They’re a celebration of peoples’ secret abilities from all over the world, aimed at highlighting the hidden abilities of some of our favourite sauces. So, take a look and if you’re hiding a secret talent, this could be your moment to shine. If you film it and upload it to the site, you could win a £1000.

This project has taught us many things, but more

importantly it also showed us the power of a great idea.

When you have a good idea, but only a tiny budget, people will find ingenious ways to stretch your meagre pennies, because they’re as excited as you and want to make it just as much as you do. So, it’s simple. We just need lots more great ideas, in everything we do.

By James Woods

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TRAVEL

BRITAIN’S FAVOURITE MOTORWAYS

A31 M11  Through the New Forest and towards sunny Bournemouth on a Friday afternoon. I’ve done that trip well over 300 times and nothing compares to cresting the hill at the edge of the New Forest and being slapped in the face by the sunset – it’s fantastic.

Pete Van Lanschot

 It’s the only motorway serving East Anglia- the route home; an underrated and quite sophisticated little road.

Rowan Rosser

M4

M180 A180

FLYOVER (THROUGH CHISWICK)

 As there are no speed cameras and it’s always empty.

I am guessing no one is on it as it leads back to Grimsby!

Paul Robinson

 You don’t have to go through Chiswick (London’s smuggest area after Shoreditch).

It signals you are ‘home’ from the provinces making you feel jubilant.

And you can tell the kids it’s actually a rollercoaster and never EVER take them to Legoland.

Rob Forshaw

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BANK HOLIDAY ––– FUN

Snowdonia What shall I do this bank holiday I thought? I know, why not climb Snowdon, the highest mountain in the UK (south of Scotland). At a mere 1,085 metres above sea level, that should be a walk in the (Snowdonia) park...

Ok so I’m a bit unfit (my left knee ‘broke’ half way up) and it was miserable, wet, windy and cold weather as we got closer to the top, but it was still definitely worth the sense of achievement at reaching the summit. The views on the way up are amazing so I can only imagine what they’d have been like at the top if the cloud cover wasn’t so bad. At least the new £8.4m café was open so I was able to enjoy a ‘high’ tea.

So if anyone feels like they need a good lungful of fresh air (and is a bit fitter than I am), then pack your bag and head up Snowdon. And if you change your mind at the last minute, there’s always the easy option: the Snowdon Mountain Railway will take you all the way to the top!

By Natasha Webb

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TRAVEL

STAYCATIONS ––– THE NEW GOING ABROAD?

in three families were switching their plans from Ibiza beach luxury to enjoying the sights at Brighton Pier. I think we can all guess where I would prefer to be.

If we consider this more logically, then the staycation does have its benefits besides being less costly. The stress involved in travelling is largely avoided. The trip to the aquarium down the road only requires loading the family into the car and paying for parking, in comparison to the Terminal Five chaos at Heathrow and luggage will no longer be lost, unless it’s in the abyss of the boot of the car.

While once upon a time holidays used to involve long leisurely lunches overlooking the beach, the average holidaymaker is just as likely to come across McDonald’s in Greece as they are in their outing to Alton Towers. I may be succumbing to stereotypes a

Recession-hit Britain has been experiencing a change over recent months. The X Factor auditions take place in front of a live audience, Arlene was fired from Strictly Come Dancing and England won the Ashes (luck has not always been on our side in sporting endeavours). Even more fascinating than all the above is the emerging trend of going on holiday, at home. As Brad and Angelina became Brangelina, so the idea of staycations was born.

Gone are the week long trips to Brittany which used to be the social norm for many families. As the pound has weakened, so the traditional week or fortnight away has been replaced by day trips or short breaks, as some have decided that longer holidays are a luxury which can no longer be afforded. Indeed, a survey in July reported that one

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Photo: Russ Barnes Photography

recently undergoing a resurgence, is a lot less fun in six inches of mud, however cheap it may be. And let’s face it, that elusive holiday romance doesn’t quite have the same appeal when spend huddled under some blue tarpaulin surrounded by empty cans of cider.

2009 has been hailed as the year of the staycation.

A year when record numbers of holidaymakers have been rediscovering Britain’s underrated charms. I have yet to be convinced to remain solely within our shores for one entire summer, though perhaps I could be tempted by a Cornish pasty (apparently their sales are up by 14% in comparison to last year) at Butlins, while enjoying last years Britain’s Got Talent rejects.

Now that would truly be a British staycation.

By Katharine Weguelin

little bit here, however I think the emphasis is clear; why go abroad when there is so much to offer in blighty.

While the idea of a staycation might sound tempting, we must not underestimate the role the weather plays in holiday enjoyment. Our fate lies entirely in the hands of the weather gods. To this day, I remain haunted by memories of last year’s disastrously wet summer. The dreamy ideal of pottering around the south coast was somewhat ruined by the complete wash-out we experienced. I am not just talking a short, sharp shower. No, this was two weeks of torrential downpour; an utter disaster for even the most seasoned of staycationers.

Of course we have no control over the weather in any holiday location, however camping, which has been

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TRAVEL

BUENOS AIRES Tucked away at the end of the world, Buenos Aires started out life as a new home for millions of immigrants from across Europe lured by the promise of inconceivable wealth; If the streets of London were paved with gold, Buenos Aires’ were gold, covered in chocolate and sprinkled with diamonds. Sadly, the reality for most was very different and the slums which quickly sprung up in certain areas of the city were similar to the ones they’d left at home. “Bronca” an Argentine word to describe the misery and homesickness of the immigrants seemed to hang over the city and gave inspiration to Borges’ quote as well as its most famous export; The Tango.

That sense of European-ness has seeped through every crack of Buenos Aires; the architecture, arts, literature, food, it hangs as heavy in the air as the “Bronca” did at the turn of the century. Everything harks back to the motherland which sets it apart from its South American neighbours who are fiercely proud of their indigenous roots. Living there in 2007 I noticed that in asking anyone in BA where they are from they will always reply; “well I live in Buenos Aires but I am actually, Italian, French, German….” And it is this fierce pride in their heritage - or, arguably, their inability to embrace it that has led to them falling in between two stools; desperately trying to keep up with the Joneses, Europe’s poor relations. Yet, in the same breath as arrogant and self aggrandizing by their continental counterparts.

“I come from a sad city” wrote Borges of his home city, Buenos Aires. This is starkly at odds with the commonly held perception a heady, vibrant mix of; passion, exoticism and sex. It has seduced painters, poets, idealists, heroines, revolutionaries, dictators and most recently backpackers and big business with equal aplomb.

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But it is in this dichotomy that the indescribable and ethereal nature of “The Paris of the South” comes to be. If Paris is the prim, polite, sophisticated sister, then Buenos Aires is the brooding, dishevelled, arrogant and utterly mesmerising brother. And it is this which, for me, encapsulates everything in Buenos Aires.

Where to eat and where to go out

What to see

Tierra del Bomba A club night in a car park on the outskirts of the city.

Steel drums, rubbish bins and pots and pans are mixed in with hip hop and grime for the eclectic mix of club goers.

Casa Rosada The Pink Presidential Palace, famous for Peron addressing the masses and Madonna’s rendition of “Don’t cry for me Argentina”.

San Telmo Market Sunday antiques market in the oldest part of the city.

You can pick up anything and everything from old family photo albums to match boxes hosting the faces of Argentine dictators.

Recoletta Cemetery Evita’s buried here, along with the high society of Buenos Aires. Each mausoleum is more ornate than the last, a true testament to the competitive spirit of BA upper classes.

Puerto Roja Dive bar in San Telmo (BA’s answer to Dalston).

Loungey feel, open 24 hours with lovely cocktails and a feeling that it could kick off at any moment.

La Cabrera Eat here, die happy. The best steak I’ve ever eaten (and I don’t even like meat). 3 course meal, with booze, lots of it, for less than £5 a head.

Antiguos del Libros An antique bookshop with a café in the back. Nothing to shout about food wise other than the location. And the fact you can smoke inside.

By Vicky Clarfelt

TRAVEL

COSTA DEL SOL ––– PUERTO BANUS

A glimpse into a world of money, champagne and ladies of the night… priced and although spirits can cost ten euros a drink, wine and beer are affordable, so you can feel part of the glamorous scene without breaking the bank. In contrast, one row behind the marina is a street that could be part of any tacky European resort full of cheap bars lined with reps offering free shots and prostitutes.

The bars at the harbour start going at about 1am and have a mix of financiers, young Russian heirs, football club owners and young Brits abroad who want to try how the other half live. Champagne and 3L bottles of vodka are common and all served with a sparkler so everyone knows who is paying, and whilst some big DJs do visit Puerto Banus, nightlife here is really more about posing than dancing. As we belatedly realised prostitution is accepted and thriving and when tiny dresses are the standard it is confusing which of the attractive girls draped over men are paid for the privilege.

Unfortunately, a few dance floor displays left nothing to the imagination.

Whilst Puerto Banus is immediately alluring with its boat-filled harbour and designer heavy presence, by then end of the week it felt a bit tasteless and we were ready to head home to normality. And if I had a yacht, I’d definitely be taking it to Ibiza town instead.

By Karen Iles

The Costa del Sol would not be somewhere I would have thought to visit, but whilst looking for a fun break in the sun with three old friends we were offered a week of dirt cheap accommodation. With a quick bit of investigation we found return flights from Gatwick to Malaga under £150 and Puerto Banus the lively nightspot was only ten minutes down the road - we were sold.

Our apartment was in Monte Biarritz and luckily we were only looking to laze in the sun here as it was a dull place. Designed only for people who can drive out – when we had no car – we were surprised that the local shop was not a quaint village establishment but a garage, and we had to cross a dual carriageway to get to the beach. The bars and restaurants here were shabby but luckily we had glamorous Puerto Banus nearby…

In a ten minute taxi ride we were in the town famous for its yachts and their wealthy inhabitants. There were certainly plenty of impressive ones moored in the harbour with Ferraris and Lamborghinis parked nearby, I wondered if their owners knew that multiple girls would sit on these to pose for photos during the course of the evening. The harbour front is the heart of the town with a mix of smart bars, restaurants and designer shops; this is the place to people-watch the super-rich amongst the tourists. Many of the restaurants are reasonably

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INDUSTRY

GU ––– BLOG

There are lots of ways we show the outside world what we do at GU HQ; GUM, Tweet 250, Grandmusings, The GU website……

And now we have a lovely blog to fit alongside these.

We wanted to do something; which was different from other agency blogs, was different from the other ways we communicated with the outside world and most crucially wasn’t just a blog for blog’s sake, it needed a reason to exist and a good one at that.

We backed and forthed, and brainstormed, and backed and forthed some more and came up with the idea of “Processing the world around us”, in a nutshell; how what we do at GU affects things outside of it. That can be anything and everything; a new technology and how we’re using it right, a different approach to running a project through to how we spend our You Fund to do fun and interesting things.

It’s called Starters for 10 and we’re really pleased with it. As with all blogs, it lives and dies on the merit of its content but we know that we’re all interesting bods, who have opinions and like to share them, so get writing, commenting and reading at: www.thegrandunion.com/blog

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INDUSTRY

EVERYONE & EVERYTHING ––– IS A BRAND

It never used to be like this. Only the really famous could be considered to be a brand and the mechanisms by which they became famous were closed and not open to you and I. Today all of us have access to channels that can make us famous.

But it is not even in the context of fame that I am suggesting that we are all brands but instead it’s the small things we do that are amplified through ‘social networks’. Each tweet, update or status communicates a message about who we are to our friends and colleagues. But do we pay that much attention to what we are saying?

At a recent presentation I gave on the subject of the GU brand I asked everyone whether there were things that they would not do within Facebook for fear of negative perception. The overwhelming answer was yes.

We are used to the idea of marketing ourselves from a young age. We know how to stand out and promote ourselves or at least we think we do and never more so than in the race for a job. We polish our CVs, our interview technique and fight to get noticed more than any of the other candidates. So it is not as if the idea of self-promotion is new to us.

However these activities have traditionally been confined to relatively closed and private environments.

Today we have channels at our fingertips that can reach millions. The opportunities and risks associated with being noticed are much greater.

As a result of this I think we have developed a greater sense of self which is then amplified in multiple media formats: video, audio and written word. While many would dispute that they don’t pay any attention to what they say or do and feel it is far fetched that they act like a brand, it is undeniable that the content that is

produced will or could endure forever. It lasts longer than the moment in which it was conceived.

Every politician in the country has a skeleton in the closet somewhere. These will often be held back by opposing parties and used at significant moments during an election campaign. All sides do it and it is often called ‘dirty tricks’. Each of these skeletons is a ticking timebomb waiting to explode across the pages of the News of the World.

Whatever we want to do now or in the future we are leaving a historical trail of content that can be interpreted and examined for years to come. Our own ticking timebomb. We may not like or recognise the fact that we are brands but the truth is that we are increasingly acting and behaving like the brands we promote.

We measure our success through friends. The more friends we have the more popular we are and the more followers, the more notoriety. We have numerous tools of promotion that help draw attention to ourselves. It can be a confusing and complicated space within which to operate and can occasionally leave us feeling out of control.

So where is all this heading? A recent job advertisement from Best Buy stated that the candidate had to have at least 500 followers to qualify. By inference this implied that without being part of a social network and being a success within one then you were not fit for the job. While a headline grabbing and perhaps isolated comment on the job market it does point to the importance of how we promote ourselves.

So for the time being it looks like social networks are here to stay, which leads us to one important question. If we are a brand, then what kind of brand do we want to be and what is the best way to go about promoting it?

By Rob Forshaw

24

We may not like or recognise the fact that we are brands but the truth is that we are increasingly acting and behaving like the brands we promote.

25

INDUSTRY

THE VALUE OF FREE

26

In the with a future we w but in lot more pa ill end up id re lookin turn consum for news g for qualit ers will be y and value.

There’s been a lot of talk about free vs paid for news recently, even Rupert Murdock has a new mantra, “People reading news for free on the web, that’s got to change.’’

This was not always the case. By the late 1990s most newspapers around the world had launched online editions in an attempt to follow or stay ahead of their competitors. But in this scramble to be a part of the new space they underestimated the impact of publishing their content online with no restriction on who can access it.

Perhaps newspaper owners just wanted to keep up with their competitors or they thought that traffic to their sites would result in offline sales or they expected advertising revenue to pay for the sites.

Perhaps they genuinely thought people would never stop buying newspapers. Either way people expect to access news for free now.

For most newspapers in the UK the situation is compounded by the fact we have that uniquely funded institution, the BBC. The BBC news website is something that as a licence payer we have already paid for.

So why would we pay more to see pretty much the same thing on a different website, unless it had some real value.

The FT is one tabloid that didn’t jump on the free band wagon, they charged for their content from day one (like the Economist, not strictly a newspaper I know). Perhaps this was down to their unique proposition or because the newspaper version is also relatively expensive. It would be nice to think that it was because they understood where the real value of what they do is, in what their journalists say and write. In both examples it would seem that people are willing to pay for information that has a perceived value.

There is something we can all take from this, by allowing news content to be freely available the majority of the news industry devalued their core commodity, once you do that it is very hard for anyone to see value in it.

This is not to say that free is going to go away any time soon. User generated news sites such as newsvine.com and www.ireport.com, blogs, wikis and crowd sourced answer sites like Yahoo! answers will have their place. Even with news sites there is a halfway house, something the Economist does very well, you can have some free content, then more in-depth paid for articles to complement your off line publication.

My guess is that in the future we will end up with a lot more paid for news but in return consumers will be looking for quality and value.

Wishful thinking would be that the winners are those who provide real insight and worthwhile opinion and losers the trash journalism we have increasingly been bombarded with in recent years.

By Sundeep Kumar Read more on the Free debate: Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson www.squidoo.com/the-free-debate www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/06/090706crbo_books_gladwell http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/malcolm-is-wrong.html

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INDUSTRY

information provides a richer and more relevant result for people than a page of text and links served up by Google.

Often coupled with the notion of real-time is “personal” search. This relates to the originator of the information and is where Facebook is starting to get traction. When you type in “cheesecake recipes” into Google, UKTV, the BBC and Betty Crocker all return with delicious lemon and banoffee varieties of the world’s finest desserts. The same term into Facebook could return a recipe from a university friend, work colleague or Aunt, along with more personal information on the recipe’s origins, exact shops from which to get the ingredients and maybe even photos. For many people this information will be more useful than Delia Smith’s website as it has additional layers and detail relevant to them.

There are a lot of ifs and maybes in these two scenarios. If the central line is running a good service how would you know? People won’t be twittering on mass about the excellent service in the Acton area.

Similarly, if your extended group of friends, family and colleagues consist of the culinary inept, it is unlikely they have posted details of their cheesecake recipe on Facebook, and even less likely they have gone to the trouble of including photos and directions to local suppliers.

So Google remains your best bet. What it must (and surely will) do is work to ensure that search results get more relevant to you as an individual and can be based on time (e.g. real-time) as well as complicated mathematical equations that determine something’s credibility. Google’s introduction of universal search means that we can now see more types of content in our search results – books, maps, videos, images and news now sit along with the recognisable list of links – what is missing however is the sense that the results are tailored for me and take account of the now. It will surely come, but whilst a solution remains in the ether, the likes of Facebook and Twitter have a credible case to consider themselves potentially major players in the search market.

By Steve Parker

THE EVOLUTION ––– OF SEARCH

Illustration: boomerang.nl

John Battelle knows a thing or two about the internet.

He was one of the founders of Wired, Boing Boing, and is a visiting Professor at Berkeley. He also wrote a great book called The Search and maintains one of the industry’s best blogs - Searchblog.com. So when he says that search “is a problem only 5% solved”, he’s probably right.

We all know that search is the bedrock of the web, the default go-to-site for millions of people everyday as they attempt to sift through the billions of indexed pages and find something relevant to them. And on top of that it is a given that Google is the dominant player; more than a website, it is now a ubiquitous media property and the world’s most valuable brand. But if search is a problem that is barely solved and Google is its main exponent, does that not lead us to the conclusion that in many ways Google is getting a lot wrong?

Well not quite, but what it does mean is that there’s a lot of innovation to come, and it’s not all going to come from Sergey and Larry’s behemoth.

“Real-time” has been making strides over the past year as a valuable facet of search – the ability to get results and information as events unfold. Google has a disadvantage here, it’s algorithms are based on page links and as such the most established websites will come at the top. This is undoubtedly useful when searching for “Nasa”, “The English civil war” or “tube map”, as the information is relatively static. That is to say that new and pertinent information has most likely not been added to the subject of your search.

If you searched for “central line delays” however, that information is related to the now – you are probably not interested in a catalogue of the central line delays in the last week – you want to know about the ones occurring at the present time. Google does its job here – it delivers the relevant web page from TFL as the first ranking.

What it doesn’t do however is deliver any additional context or a continual update.

Put the same result into twitter and you will get a host of people stating exactly where it is delayed, how long they’ve been waiting, what the latest announcement is on the platform, as well as the odd expletive about how it has affected their day. This

28

Our twitter site, grand musings, has been up and running at full speed for a few months now. Last month we passed the heralded 1,000 follower figure. Since launching it has been home to a mix of links, pictures, moans about music and detailed breakdowns of how much we booze. The following is a collection of the 550+ tweets posted to date…

GRAND ––– MUSINGS

hello sailor

#summerfashion Vix works the headband like Netwon-John, let me hear your body talk, body talk

Nice page error graphic from bit.ly

Just bumped into the internet guy

Illustration: boomerang.nl

“Listen pig racing is the future”

Entered an inflatable igloo with the rest of the judges

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INDUSTRY

IN PRAISE OF THE ––– BRAINSTORM

Illustration: Jason Ruddy

I’ve long been a fan of Richard Huntington’s blog Adliterate. It’s one of the most well written ad blogs around and there are a fair few. My slavish devotion to his blog meant I pretty much lapped up and bought wholesale whatever he published. No post turned my head more than “The brainstorm – a Trojan horse of mediocrity”. In it Huntington declares that brainstorms are “fucking useless” and bring “an unwelcome democracy into the process of idea generation”. Worse still they are really just exercises in lifting morale and making everyone on the team feel involved. Or as Huntington deftly puts it, the role of the facilitator is “to ensure that everyone goes home with a balloon”.

The conclusion he reaches is that strategists should be paired with others strategists or creatives, two heads are better than one, and a lot better than ten. In this model people feel ownership of a problem and hence will care more about it, think in a more structured and coherent fashion, and as a result produce great work.

They will not come out after a week on a problem with the long list of shit a brainstorm produces; rather they will craft a great solution to a problem through a mix of convergent and divergent thinking, building on iterations and tangents until an answer has been reached.

This was my view for a long time (if 4 years counts as a long time). Too often brainstorms were put in, everyone sat round the table, people drifted off, and a lot was said but no one could really remember any of it five minutes after leaving the room. They were often the last chance saloon of the damned, a brittle plaster to hide a malignant wound.

However, after I went on the excellent APG course on how to actually run brainstorms, or as they put it “facilitate great creative thinking”, my head has been turned. Brainstorms are a force for good. The term just gets sullied by people who either subscribe to the “go home with a balloon” philosophy or, a much worse crime, those who don’t plan, structure or think about how the session will play out. Turning up and hoping for the best doesn’t get you very far.

If you make peace with the fact that a brainstorm is about generating ideas and lots of them, not about deliberation and meticulous craft, their existence becomes a lot easier to accept. Now before I get shouted at, the latter is what we should all aim for, but some problems need more than two people to solve, have quick turnaround times for clients, or simply need to be opened up from what may have been an initially restrictive or straight client brief.

Setting rules helps, and these aren’t simply restricted

to “don’t criticise”, “no wrong answers” and “give everyone a hug”, but more punchy criteria for comment; “no waffling on about your own life story”, “if you can’t say it in a sentence, don’t” and “don’t wank off about how great your experience is”. Sessions tend to tail off when people relate the problem to an experience they had that morning, or try to trump everyone in the room by detailing previous work they’ve done for another client in the sector. This leads to people being disengaged, not thinking about the actual problem, and instead dreaming of fantastical ways to slay the bore on the other side of the table.

If everyone is relaxed, understands what problem they’re trying to solve and what a successful outcome of the session is, brainstorms can actually work. They can generate some great ideas. They can also generate some utter rubbish. That doesn’t matter. If you come out of the room with two or three ideas that can be built on and refined, it’s been a success. You’re certainly never going to walk straight from a brainstorm to a client boardroom and announce you’ve cracked their next big campaign. But you might approach the problem differently and come up with a fresh angle and creative approach.

Since I returned from the APG session, I’ve run about fifteen sessions, all of which have resulted in a long list of ideas; the good, the bad and the unprintable. They have helped us kick-start projects, come up with ideas for nobudget jobs or get together thought starters for a client presentation. For the latter two scenarios, sending two people away to “crack it” would have done more harm than good. In these situations brainstorms have been the best way to solve the problem and certainly not an exercise in morale building or gesture politics.

Finally it is important to note the people who are involved. By branding the brainstorm a poor man’s alternative to real thinking it does a disservice to the talent in the room. Getting different skill sets round the table adds more than it takes away. No one person in any agency can possibly have the depth of skills to understand the permutations and intricacies of every discipline. By getting a tech lead, a UX junkie, a creative team, a designer, a PR specialist and occasionally the odd account man or three, the options discussed can feel richer and more diverse. When we’re trying to solve problems, simply viewing them as strategic or creative tasks can narrow rather than expand options.

Viewing them collectively will open up new avenues and provide a whole host of perspectives. And doing this in a brainstorm is as good a way as any.

By Steven Parker

If you make peace with the fact that a brainstorm is about generating ideas and lots of them, not about deliberation and meticulous craft, their existence becomes a lot easier to accept.

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INDUSTRY

CROWD SOURCING

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Marketing is under more scrutiny, CEOs and FDs keep hearing about the power of the web and aren’t always sure that a £5m ad campaign is going to push the consumers buttons.

Unilever’s recent decision to end their relationship with Lowe, and hand the creative brief for Pepperami over to a crowd sourcing agency has been met with a fair share of comment and debate.

Response in the marketing press ranged from ‘brave’ to ‘what are they doing?’ and everything inbetween.

Pepperami’s iconic ‘Bit of an animal’ animated salami was actually created by SP Lintas back in the Nineties and, at the time, saved the brand from Unilever’s guillotine. The product had reached the end of its product lifecycle and in their minds it was time to pull the plug. In that climate great creative can often be born, and so it proved: Unilever would do something only if the creative work could really shift consumer purchasing behaviour. And it did. Until now Pepperami has been ever present on supermarket and convenience store shelves and provided other product spin-offs (‘Fat Boy’, ‘Hot One’ et al). The same is true for Lynx deodorant by the way.

All of that said, of course, I haven’t seen that many people munching on Salami up and down Queens Park High Street. But, to be fair, people tend to munch on Parma ham paninis and a latte these days, and I guess there’s the rub this time around.

Once again the product has been deemed to reach the end of its lifecycle, and so a new seam is being mined to end the brand’s lifecycle.

The creative industry’s response is interesting as is the strategic impact of Unilever’s decision. Might there have been something else behind Unilever’s decision, a warning shot across their agencies’ bows?

Maybe – but unlikely. It feels more like a brave decision from a business that has, historically, not been afraid to make them when required.

So why is the creative industry disappointed by this decision? In fact, more than that, why do they seem to feel that they have been wronged in some way?

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INDUSTRY

The creative model version 1.0 Nearly all ad agencies subscribe to the 1950’s (Mad Men) model of copywriter and art director teams, briefed by account men on the objectives for a piece of communication. In the 50 years since that model evolved we have had new communications roles (strategic planners) the (arguable) diminishing of account men responsibilities and the rise all of all–encompassing ‘strategists’ who do a bit of both. But the creative model hasn’t changed much.

The thinking goes along the lines of supply and demand. Creative talent is in short supply (it’s hard to think of a creative idea after all – isn’t it?? Erm…………) and in high demand (lots of brands, lots of consumer eyeballs). The conduit for the two, of course, is media and, more pertinently, broadcast media. The ability to attract a large number of consumer eyeballs to ad breaks placed a premium on the creative that went in those breaks and, by default, those who wrote it, ergo: the creative team.

But, of course, times have changed, Broadcast media still has its place (even if that’s X-Factor and large sporting events by and large), but myriad new media have sprung up.

Businesses have changed too. Marketing is under more scrutiny, CEOs and FDs keep hearing about the power of the web and aren’t always sure that a £5m ad campaign is going to push the consumers’ buttons. That isn’t to say that there’s a proven better way, just that this may no longer be the best way.

As a result creative approaches have changed. Numerous brands have been built with a vast array of different creative treatments in which advertising is a small part (Domino’s, Red Bull, New Balance, Innocent) and, more pertinently, numerous brands have been built with far less emphasis on an oldschool, wrestled with a barbed-wire wrapped creative idea. (Uniqlo, Easyjet, Umbro, Topshop, John Lewis for example).

Thoughts on whether this is a good thing will vary. Certainly I think that TV creative, for example, is, on the whole fairly poor today and that its quality is getting worse, with some notable exceptions (that prove the rule).

In short, when the media is cheaper and new techniques are available the creative idea doesn’t seem to matter so much.

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Photo: www.alexkess.com

The crowd can include artists, writers, designers, editors, singers, sculpters, animators and strategists, just as it can include those with no creative experience. But collectively they might generate something interesting.

Creative model 2.0 So, is crowd-sourcing ideas the way forward. Opening up the briefs to everyone and letting all and sundry have a crack? Probably not, but it’s a new model and one that recognises the changing media landscape.

That isn’t to say that the media landscape is changing therefore, the creative quality should go down, rather that clients are less prepared to pay a pair of creatives to generate it. If two creatives with an experience of producing traditional media work are given a brief for something more complex and multi-channel, they often struggle and come back with ad-centric ideas.

But a crowd of interested parties might produce something illuminating. Why not? The crowd can include artists, writers, designers, editors, singers, sculpters, animators and strategists, just as it can include those with no creative experience. But collectively they might generate something interesting.

And, if they don’t the client has wasted very little - with the exception of time.

Equally couldn’t different walled garden crowds be recruited? If you are an architect why wouldn’t you be part of a community from which a) you might get more work b) you might collaborate with others and c) make a penny along the way?

Campaign’s response is immaterial to this article, to an extent. They serve the ad agency sector well and defend its role and involvement with clients successfully. But you wouldn’t publish something incendiary if you thought it wouldn’t resonate with your audience.

Personally I think we will see more crowd-sourcing, not less. I don’t think we will see a revolution on crowd-sourcing briefs, but I think we will see more of them and, equally, will see new crowd-sourcing platforms that seek to tap into people’s innate creativity (both natural and trained) and offer them a payment in return.

Now, I have to go. I have a coffee machine to design.

By Phil Dowgierd

35

h o

not f on it far so Ho adver made s arms t Ge and a Caver holed anima lands A voc pla

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;

I love The Beatles.

This isn’t a commonplace love, like loving Marmite or watching X Factor. I love the Beatles like Christians love Jesus, like Hindus love Shiva… It’s an adoration that brings a sense of inner calm and the knowledge that all must be right with a world from which such beauty can spring. If there was some sort of Beatles related act of worship then I would be on my hands and knees performing it three times a day. My head pointed towards Liverpool.

The first and second greatest moments of my life were my two meetings with Paul McCartney. I worked at Radio 1 at the time and of course had to maintain a professional air externally. Yet both times I stood blinded by the light radiating outwards from His body, little hearts popping out from my eyes, His words ringing like bells in my head. Afterwards I took refuge in the studio loos, shaking with slow tears of happiness wending their way down my face….Yes I LOVE The Beatles.

You get the idea.

Now the third greatest moment of my life is on the horizon – Wednesday 9th September is the launch date for The Beatles Rock Band. If you’re not familiar with the oeuvre this is the guitar/karaoke based game for the PlayStation or Xbox. You get a plastic guitar with multi coloured buttons on it and you have to play the notes in time with the music. You can also sing along with a microphone and score points for your pitching prowess. So far so mundane.

However, unlike every other band, The Beatles and their attack dog record company Apple have long resisted whoring out their music. It’s not on adverts, it’s not in films, it’s not on iTunes, it’s not on ringtones, it’s even quite hard to find on The Pirate Bay. It’s precious, like gold, and they’ve jolly well made sure that game makers Harmonix know it. Luckily Harmonix have got the message and have obviously bent over backwards AND given their right arms to create a game worthy of The Beatles’ legacy.

George’s son, Dhani Harrison (look him up on Google images – it’s like George cloned himself) has been heavily involved in the project. Being young and a bit hip he’s been instrumental in pushing the game makers and their technology to the limit. As you play you work you way up from the sweaty Cavern, through Shea Stadium, to the rooftop of the Apple building – their final live performance. Of course for a large part of their career the band were holed up at Abbey Road doing drugs, so how have Harmonix got around this? Well with a wonderful sympathetic touch – the so-called ‘Dreamscape’ animations that accompany the tracks from the late 60s. These hallucinogenic imaginings grow organically from the music enveloping the player in a landscape of love and joy through which The Beatles sway and swoon. It’s like seeing the world through the Fabs’ LSD soaked eyes.

A further advance is that up to six players (count ‘em!) can join in compared to the previous Rock Band outings of four. Players can take on the vocal harmonies of John, Paul and George – and if you think that’s a bit unchallenging, wait until you have a stab at ‘Because’ – while three others play guitar, bass and drums.

There are 45 songs straddling every album (something Apple insisted upon), this means not only crowd pleasers like ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ and ‘Day Tripper’ but also lesser known tracks like ‘Hey Bulldog’ and ‘Within You Without You’. And if these 45 songs aren’t enough for you (which they’re not for me) a further 31 songs will thereafter be available as downloadable content with potentially more to be announced.

The release is seen in the industry to be key in broadening out the demographics of online console gaming. Not only will it attract an older market but crucially it will spur conversions of casual gamers into fully signed up purchasers of the downloadable content on offer. Certainly I, having never paid for content previously, will have my credit card details punched in and ready to go on the day of release (please take my money, all of it, just give me more Beatles.) It’s this sort of consumer engagement that has Microsoft and Sony trembling with anticipation.

One day you’ll be able to stand in your living room with the four Beatles beamed in beside you in 3D hologram format. As a song draws to a close Paul will give you a cheeky thumbs up, John will remark sardonically that it wasn’t as good as last time and George will probably just ignore you. Then Ringo will twirl his sticks, count you in and off you’ll all go again, rocking out to the screams of the crowd. When that day comes it will be the fourth greatest moment of my life, until then I’m just looking forward to the third…..

By Claire Kneeshaw

The Gentleman’s guide to Sporting Pursuits

Fishing

BY NICK PARNELL

F

natural smells and noises and the beautiful gentle flowing water cutting its way through the hills and valleys like a snake through grass.

The first time you see the water, you become transfixed by the magic and mystery, you stare through the murky depths trying to catch a glimpse of the monsters that may lie beneath.

The thing to remember is the angler is by no means the dominant character in the landscape. A fisherman is just a minor player who’s trying to build a relationship with the water, which is always keeping something from you. You are a guest in nature’s castle and the fish are the gatekeepers, they hold the key which decides whether you have a good day or a great day (there is never a bad day when fishing). Once you’ve realised you’re not going to take the river by storm and have everything revealed, you can listen to what it has to say.

What you soon realise as you sit quietly, rod in hand, time seemingly having stopped for the last few hours and everything appearing clearer, is that whether you actually catch a fish at all has become immaterial - it is just about being there, being part of nature. And if you do happen to get lucky and land a fish or two, well so much the better.

ishing is the art of luring, cajoling and fooling fish from their natural habitat using methods honed over centuries and has been passed down from generation to generation. Whether for sustenance, for sport or in many cases for both, no other past time, sport or activity can do the same for both mind and soul as the art of angling.

Fishing takes you away from everything; it’s transfixing, meditative, cerebral. The places it takes you to physically can be truly wild and unspoiled, but it is not just the enchanting unspoilt countryside which draws thousands of anglers to the banks of rivers and lakes every weekend. Fishing is very stimulating mentally — like a high-pressure game of chess.

Make the wrong move and its checkmate, and the fish are changing the rules all of the time. If you do hook a fish and bring it in, there’s nothing better, you can’t transcend that moment.

Fishing for many is the escape their mind and body needs from the speed, noise, stress and excesses of the city. It offers the tranquil, soft, solitary silence they yearn for come the end of the week. As the week crawls to an end, anglers find their mind starts to move from spreadsheets, forecasts and status meetings to thoughts of open rolling countryside alive with

38

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.â&#x20AC;? ~ Herbert Hoover

39

Cats Vs. Dogs: BIGGER THAN CITY VS. UNITED, ENGLAND VS. AUSTRALIA, BIGGER EVEN IN SOME PLACES THAN MAN VS. WOMAN. (WOMAN WINS THAT ONE BY THE WAY). WHERE DO YOU STAND? FENCE SITTERS NOT WELCOME. THE COOL, PROFESSIONALLY DISINTERESTED CAT VS. THE LOYAL BUT SLIGHTLY DIM DOG?

by Pete Van Lanschot

Dogs every time, says Rowan ‘Rover’ Rosser.

We’ve had dogs in my family all my life and even though they’ve all gone to the big kennel in the sky now, I still expect to be greeted at home by a wet nose, wagging tail and some pure unconditional love. Can’t beat it.

Simple pleasures for simple creatures (men that is, not dogs).

No chance of that kind of welcome from a cat – he’d probably be round the neighbours watching The Bill and eating their dinner because it prefers it to yours. Not that there’s anything wrong with yours, it just prefers theirs.

They’re mercenaries cats, flighty affection available to the highest bidder.

Dogs will always be there for you with a wag, keen for a walk; they’ll imagine you’re, literally, the greatest human being ever just for slipping them a crust under the table, and they want to have fun.

Cats don’t – they’re out for themselves, with no concept of loyalty or friendship – soon as they get a better offer they’ll be off.

And the worst thing about cats - they show you their zeros when they walk away, deliberately I think. I really, really don’t like that.”

40

T

:

The Eternal Debate Cats without a doubt, says Bob ‘Pussy’ Lloyd.

I’m afraid man’s best friend is not a friend of mine. Let’s start with the hygiene and the poo shall we?

Apart from sleeping, our feline friends spend the other half of their cosy lives cleaning themselves. My cat plays the double bass (licks its bum), more times than Charlie Haden does at his own Festival of Jazz.

Watching a dog sat dragging its arse along the lounge carpet is not hygienic. No wonder the house of a dog owner tends to smell.

Time for a poo… but do you ever actually see a cat doing a number two? Very rarely... discreetly out the catflap they go, behind the bush out of view, they do their business. They even dig a hole, and cover it over when they are finished. Perfect fertiliser for your roses.

Dogs on the other hand have to wait until their owner can be bothered to take them out for a walk. There is dog poo everywhere in North London… pavements regularly covered in it, I hate it. Then you have the responsible dog owners who “with pure unconditional love” pick up their dogs hot fresh poo with a plastic bag!

Just the thought of having to do this twice a day walking the dog beggars belief.

Agreed, dogs are better than cats at catching a ball, but when it comes to football skills, cat kick dogs off the pitch. All it takes is a scrunched up sweet wrapper tossed across the floor and your cat will all of a sudden turn into a four legged Pelé… awesome skills without losing control of the ball.

The neighbour’s dog constantly barking…. shut up! Enough said on that matter.

Yes… cats are out for themselves sometimes, but so what, their independence means you can get on and not worry about them all the time. Purr-fect!

And yes… they do deliberately walk away showing you their zeros, but the tail is also aloft saying, “Up yours you cheapskate! I’m not eating that cheap cat food

41

Before starting at Grand Union in early August I spent several weeks travelling up and down the country to promote my musical venture ‘I Have Clones’. Anyone I speak to about the tour is eager to know how the shows went, yet the reality of touring is that gigs only make up a minute part of the day. In order to convey what I think touring is really like, I’ve compared some of the fundamental elements of life on the road with those here at Grand Union.

By Robert Moore

42

Satnav On a par with guitar strings in terms of importance is a Satnav, or Emily as I like to call her. Without Emily I would probably never have started here at GU and would still be wondering why my car was parked in a field in Ayr. Oxford Street isn’t too hard to find so sadly Emily features less in my life these days.

Time If there’s one thing that I’ve found is at a premium here at Grand Union it’s time. There’s no budget for time, not enough time to get everything done and no time to find more time. This is not the case when you live life on the road. Wherever in the country you wake up there’s no need to head off until midday and this is just to make sure you get to the venue in time for a sound check slot that the venue promoter has arbitrarily decided on several months before (even for our most gruelling drive from Glasgow to Leicester we didn’t get up until 11!). After sound check there’s several more hours of listening to bands of varying quality before the 30 minutes of glory is upon you. After that it’s time to load up and hit the road once more.

WiFi I generally don’t spare a passing thought as to how many unsecure WiFi networks there are in the vicinity of the GU office, however whilst on tour WiFi is king.

Countless afternoons are spent in new cities perched on a bench near an Apple store or looking for those illusive Costa coffees that provide internet gratis or the sporadic Whetherspoons where the advertised WiFi actually works. I invested in a broadband dongle before setting off and this ensured I could stay connected in even the most technologically backward areas of the country.

To some, the concept of driving around the country visiting new places and then promptly logging on to the net seems a little strange - ‘why don’t you see the city?’ they say. The sad fact is that many places in Britain share identikit high streets, look tired and frankly are a little bit crap. We’re all Londoners here, but don’t forget that places like Hull really do exist, and they’re not pretty. I found that getting online took me away from where I may have been and restored some sense of normality in to what is a rather peculiar existence.

The AA I wasn’t a member of the AA when I set off on tour but thanks to mobile broadband shortly after breaking down in a dodgy estate in Glasgow I was fully covered.

Without the AA I’d still be staring blankly at my dip stick, and for that I am eternally grateful. I’ve not had to call out the AA since starting work at GU, however if a similarly efficient system was employed by London Midland I wouldn’t have been late twice this week.

Sleeping I’m going to assume that when most GU employees leave work at the end of the day they have a fairly good idea of where they’re going to sleep that night; on tour the situation is sadly not the same. Many touring bands simply resort to sleeping in the back of their van after shows, however as I toured as a two piece, the music is heavily electronic, bulky drums were not a requirement.

This brought with it the advantage that we were able to tour in my overloaded Corsa, however sleeping in it was to be avoided if at all possible. Through the bands combined Facebook friend count of over 1000 (yep) we harassed friends that lived within a 100 mile radius of our current location and thankfully never once went without a decent nights sleep!

DO NOT DISTURB

Sound, Crowd and Pay In contrast to sex, drugs and rock n’ roll this is actually what life on tour revolves around and if you get all three in one night it’s been a good show. The music I make is certainly not top 40 material and there’s a whole load of weird and wonderful sounds going on – if we played a venue with a shoddy sound system or a stoned, washed up rocker for a PA guy, this generally made me unhappy.

A good crowd makes all the difference and if the show goes down well then I’m chuffed – that said it is always amusing to see an audience gawp at you spazzing out on stage whilst wondering why on earth you are screaming into a microphone. Should the sound system be poor and the audience unappreciative the night can still be salvaged if there is the promise of payment to come.

Nobody in their right mind gets into music to make money so I’m quietly proud of the fact I made a small profit on tour.

Sex, Drugs and Rock n’roll This is the standard preconception of what going on tour involves and unfortunately for me none of the above were true. As my bandmate doesn’t drink and one of us was always driving the potential for wayward behaviour was limited, however we did manage to swim in the bitterly cold sea in Ayr and I think I accidentally swore on stage at a Christian venue in Daventry. It doesn’t get much more rock n’ roll than that. Here at GU there’s been none of the above either, despite Jason Ruddy’s attempts to lure me into shooting up under the table with him.

I’ve realised from writing this that I sound a little like my life depends on a connection to the internet and that touring really isn’t all that exciting.

In a sense both are somewhat true, but what’s impossible to convey is the fun you have rocking out on stage, playing songs you’ve written and knowing there’s a crowd of people in front of you enjoying it just as much as you are.

All around us the old rules upon which society has been formed are changing. Some rules are evolving, some are being jettisoned, others are being created based on behaviours reaching tipping point.

Nowhere are we exposed to this more than in London. As well as living six feet from rats, we sit cheek by jowl with people of all persuasions, colours, creeds, sexualities and opinions nearly all of the time. Furthermore they have been encouraged by the libertine politics of our time to believe (rightly) that they have an opinion that is equal to any other and which has a right to be aired. Thus if they want to do something they can do it, and if someone else doesn’t like it…………………….kind of tough (laws withstanding).

Needless to say this has positive and negative aspects.

What interests me is how the indeterminate, almost unquantifiable structures that hold a society together evolve with this. From my perspective I don’t think we are at a point of conclusion yet, and potentially, won’t be for years to come. We are absorbing the world around us at an ever faster rate and trying to process and understand higher quantities of information than ever before. The world has got faster and we have to get faster with it; so the theory goes.

Of course, this has led to the growth of the slow movement which, in turn, via the recent economic meltdown, has led to all sorts of new trends and up-turns in old ones: ‘staycationers’, home-growing vegetables and herbs, the growth in walking and camping, riding a bike et al.

I am not suggesting, by the way, that the evolution of all these things is linear, rather that they can be followed by observation in a linear sense for the purpose of presentation.

There’s one area, though, where the change is insidious, furtive and almost unrecognisable until a point of comparison is found.

You can cut and paste any number of things that have got noisier (buses, mobiles, people, scooters) but also new forms of noise generation (MP3 players, TVs on public transport etc.) but it’s less about the volume and more about how pervasive they are.

This article isn’t about how terrible all this is but rather how easily one can find solace.

One of the great revelations of entering the middle Earth of manhood (I am now 36) has been the amount of pleasure I get in getting up at 5am when my newborn son awoke, and taking him out for a walk ( so that he could fall asleep).

The roads, parks and open spaces of London are yours. Even more so if it is the weekend.

London reveals itself in a flirtatious, lascivious way, with beguiling buildings, new roads and undiscovered side ways. Parks become huge playgrounds to one’s mind, allowing thoughts to roam free and silence to abound.

I’ve never been adverse to getting up early, indeed my personality type would be rooted in lark rather than night owl, despite my behaviour to the contrary in my twenties.

As a cyclist I have always loved the open road and know that 70 miles on a Sunday is completed with far more satisfaction if you are out the door by 7 (and back by 11). You are out in the sticks by 8:00 and at that time on a Sunday very little is happening save the paper-boy and dad taking the dog for a walk: lanes, hedgerows, woods become like undiscovered folds of some new land.

What I hadn’t had the capacity to consider was the same thing was true of London.

As a result of this revelation, walks in W10 evolved into walks in Central London (try St James’s at 6am on a Sunday for true silent decadence), trips along the river and the Southbank and parades with the pushchair through The City and Barbican.

You don’t really hear anything, and certainly if you wander through a park you hear zero.

So, as society evolves, rules change and new behaviours solidify, an early morning walk is the antitode.

For me anyway.

Noise.

I don’t mean the usual arguments regarding the amount of noise that we might have to put up with from our neighbours, flat-mates and nearby apartments but the small increases in noise that we now have in our lives and how we respond to them.

ps. it’s even better in the rain.

By Phil Dowgierd

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Photo: Hugh Gage

e r o f e b e m e k a p u W e m o c s ’ n u s the

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Photo: Hugh Gage

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The Day The Magic Died Before Disney sugar-coated and sanitised classic fairytales, they were much, much darker tales of death, mutilation and rape.

By Stu Hallybone

THE LITTLE MERMAID

POCAHONTAS

Hans Christian Andersen’s book is much more graphic, there is no cheeky lobster Sebastian, no flounder, and in addition to losing her voice, the mermaid’s feet bleed when she walks, as if she were walking on glass.

Also, to return to the sea Ariel must cut out the hearts of both the prince and the princess he married.

Matoaka, the Native American Indian we call Pocahontas, converted to Christianity and was a spokesperson for the tobacco industry, paid the handsome sum of £4 a week by The Virginia Company. Sadly there is no record of her meeting the famous love of her life, Captain John Smith (he lied to borrow some of her fame). She died of a lingering illness aged 23.

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••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

MARY POPPINS

SNOW WHITE

In the original 1933 book Mary and the children use a compass to visit places all over the world in a remarkably short period of time. They visit a variety of cultural and racial stereotypes including Chinese, Inuit, Africans, and Native Americans.

Boy chimney sweeps were sold to master sweeps, perhaps not all like Dick Van Dyke, from as young as five years old. A Nottingham master sweep testified in 1864 ... No one knows the cruelty a boy must undergo in learning. The flesh must be hardened, rubbing with brine next to hot fire. At first they will come back from their work streaming with blood, and the knees looking as if the caps had been pulled off. Then they must be rubbed with brine again ... chim-chimney, chim-chim-chirree.

Disney, for once, restored one gory Brothers Grimm detail of the jealous queen ordering the huntsman to cut out Snow White’s beating heart, but there was something else that got chopped out. The queen actually ordered her tongue as well, she then proceeded to eat them with a nice Chianti (not knowing they are actually from a wild boar). The story ends with the surprised queen attending Snow White’s wedding and being presented with a pair of metal shoes, flaming hot from the oven. The wicked queen is forced to put them on, and then dances herself to death. I’m sure I went to that wedding.

CINDERELLA

SLEEPING BEAUTY

The story, dating back to Ancient Egypt, depicts Cinders as a prostitute called Rhodopis. Bathing in a river, an eagle snatches her sandal and carries it off to the pharaoh who starts a nationwide search to find his love. Another Scottish version features the desperate stepmother hacking off the heel and toes of her two daughters so the slipper will fit.

Was not, as Walt would want us to believe, awakened by a kiss. In the original Sicilian tale part of Lo Cunto De Li Cunte, the first known written version, the princess is raped while in a poison induced coma by a man who rides off the next morning. The teenage victim, still comatose, gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl. One afternoon, missing the nipple, one of the tykes starts to suck on fingers and pumps so hard the poisoned splinter pops out and they all live happily ever after...

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HIStory The life of the King of Pop, put to song by Katharine Weguelin.

If you see her around the office, ask for a rendition…

he had the aura of being INVINCIBLE THE MAN IN THE MIRROR who couldn’t decide if he was BLACK OR WHITE SAD though it was, on June 25th, HUMAN NATURE prevailed a life quite simply OFF THE WALL his CHILDHOOD fame a product of his father’s ambitions 5 became 1 and young michael turned into one SMOOTH CRIMINAL a career destined to be a THRILLER his music promised to HEAL THE WORLD his ability to moon walk will remain forever unrivalled the world was left SPEECHLESS as he was accused of child molestation did we KEEP THE FAITH? some did and at the BREAK OF DAWN the innocent verdict was cast a final concert aptly named ‘this is it’ was announced THIS TIME AROUND the white gloves would not make it more famous almost in death, the legend of jackson will remain UNBREAKABLE REMEMBER THE TIME, remember the place, the king of pop is dead, r.i.p m.j., you were GONE TOO SOON.

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REVIEWS

ALBUM ––– REVIEW

Imogen Heap: Ellipse If you’d never heard of the name Imogen Heap it wouldn’t be a surprise. But if you think you’ve never heard her music think again. Although she hasn’t trodden the usual path to stardom her music has appeared in such diverse arenas as the OC and the Shrek movies. Her voice is one of those ultra-distinctive voices that if you’ve heard once you’ll remember forever.

Ellipse is her 3rd solo release and her 4th proper if you include the album that shot her to prominence (Frou Frou’s 2002 Details album).

Once again she plays, sings, produces and mixes everything... as she did so successfully on her previous solo effort ‘Speak for yourself’. Heap easily steps outside traditional pop and yet still somehow manages to maintain some sort of pop sensibility with both touching and bizarre lyrics and musical/vocal arrangements that

are unlike any other.

Always pitched somewhere between Kate Bush and the Cocteau Twins, Heap will never be a chart topper like Lady Gaga or Little Boots even though she continues to be successful on both sides of the Atlantic.

Her albums are relaxing ethereal affairs that grow and grow with repeated listening - and Ellipse is no exception. Apart from the first single ‘First train home’, there is no obvious ‘next choice’ for the singles chart but that didn’t stop her previous efforts rewarding her with 2 Grammy nominations.

Having used Twitter to keep her fans up to date with how recordings were going, showcasing snippets of work in progress tracks through vBlogs and even getting her twitter fan base to write the biography for the album, its obvious that Imogen Heap is not your regular pop star... and long may that continue

51

REVIEWS

FESTIVAL ––– REVIEW

Shambala 2009

now and then however, they leave their mansion to come down to the lake and observe the festival folk running around on the other side. They nod in amusement and slowly saunter back to their drawing rooms with roasting fires and leather armchairs.

Meanwhile, those on the other side of the lake parade around in all manner of fancy dress, grinning at each other as they drink ice cold cider and blow bubbles with their kids. Games of football merge with cheerleaders doing routines, yoga lessons look on over the mini golf and wood carving is hosted by an hilariously enthusiastic techno DJ. A wide and varied selection of people come to Shambala, from families with small children to 40-year-

Not many people know about Shambala – probably because it’s on at the same time as the mighty Reading and Leeds weekends and that it is tiny in comparison (about six thousand people).

Shambala prides itself on being as carbon neutral as possible and is nestled away on some private land in Northampton. There’s a big manor house over looking the lake with all the curtains drawn. I guess the resident Ruperts don’t want to eat lunch with the distraction of brass bands, cartwheeling acrobats and dozens of small children chasing a man dressed as an alligator. Every

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Tips For Shambala ––– Bring a hat (if you made it yourself, you win) You do not need a phone, you will always find your friends Don’t bother with beer at festivals, it’s either cider or liquor Put all spirits into a plastic bottle and stewards will love you “War inna Babylon” can easily replace “your mum” as the generic answer to everything

and it is full of bass. Drum ‘n’ bass, roots, dub, dubstep and breakbeat dominate the aural senses. There are of course many other genres at the festival: Irish jig, funk, Ethiopian soul, spoken word, slam poetry, acoustic and so on, but the bass prevails and rumbles throughout like the proverbial heart of the beast.

Night time is spent wandering from one incredible sculpture, looming out of the darkness, to the next tent that is pumping out smoke and lazers. This festival isn’t big enough to try and lose your friends, so don’t bother. There are some idiots wandering about but do not worry. “I saw someone try and start a fight last year, everyone simply turned and laughed at him.”

by Pete Van Lanschot

old ravers, ‘young people’ that can “really relate” to the TV show Skins, Soho-media-wankers (such as myself), hippies, and plain old weirdos. This may not be very unique for a festival, but what is unique is the amount of unnecessary acts of kindness that these people pay to each other. You are welcomed with open arms, and are turned loose into the site free to do anything you want for the weekend.

Wherever you are in Shambala (making conversation with a stranger calling himself Mungo, hanging from giant hammocks in the woods, asleep in your tent, jumping out of the way of a giant wicker turtle on wheels) you will feel the baseline from the music reverberating through the air. The music is everywhere

53

REVIEWS

OPERA ––– REVIEW

Giulio Caesare, Glyndebourne Summer 2009

This revival of David McVicar’s 2005 production of Handel’s Giulio Caesare was perhaps one of the most feverishly anticipated revivals at this summer’s centennial Opera Festival at Glyndebourne in Sussex.

Handel’s opera takes place in Eygpt in 48 BC following the defeat of Pompey by Giulio Caesare.

Caesare’s arrival on shores of the Nile is bloody and dramatic. Having defeated Pompey, his wife Cornelia begs for his safe release. Struck with Cornelia’s beauty he agrees for his release but only if Pompey agrees to a face-to-face meeting. However, Caesare’s face-to

face-meeting with Pompey is very one-sided, as all that arrives of him is his head, a gift from Achille.

This is a classic operatic tragedy. David McVicar, the Quentin Tarantino of opera direction, provides a highly charged, emotive and challenging interpretation.

However, the standout performance is by Daniele de Niese who plays a coquettish Cleopatra. If you have never been to opera and think it is a lot of fat people shouting then think again. It is breath taking, moving and arguably the most powerful art form in the world.

By Rob Forshaw

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MAMMA MIA ––– REVIEW

However, after the initial astonishment has worn off, the show settles down into quite an enjoyable jaunt through some really brilliant pop classics. And who doesn’t love a bit of ABBA? A rendition of ‘Voulez-Vous’ just before the interval, replete with some awesome hi-NRG dancing in spandex and flares, makes the turnaround complete. You can’t help but forgive the production its gracelessness because what it does have in spades is joy. Pure unadulterated joy.

Sadly the joy was lost on many of the moon-faced, slack-jawed Neanderthals that made up the audience.

The second half sees Pierce (or rather the actor who played the role that Pierce played in the film – you know the one) sitting on the edge of the stage with his daughter singing ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’. A lovely song which made no in roads on the three teenagers sitting literally two feet away who spent the whole time texting. This is one of the problems with musicals “off the telly” - the plebeian behaviour of your fellow theatre-goers makes you despair at the downward slide of humanity.

Still what the show proves, if nothing else, is that you can’t put a dampener on the music of Bjorn and Benny. The devastating triumvirate of ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Mamma Mia’, and ‘Waterloo’ in the show’s finale sees even the most stoney-faced misanthrope grinning from ear to ear. In sum, leave your cynicism at the door and see Mamma Mia with an open heart and low critical faculties and you’ll have a great time.

By Clare Kneeshaw

We went along to Mamma Mia feeling slightly apprehensive. The film had been alright, but was mostly salvaged by the wounded rhino braying of Pierce Brosnan, whose every bassy warble sent the cinema into fits of giggles. Without the fabulous 007 could the stage version maintain our interest?

What’s more, having had recent bad experiences at the similarly low-brow Joseph, Thriller and Avenue Q, would the audience be full of cola-drinking, texting, pop corn munching riff-raff who think it acceptable to answer their mobile phones and have a full on conversation in the second row?

The answer to both was yes and yes.

We took our seats on the front row (top West End tip – front row tickets not only get you up close and personal, but are often cheaper than the rest of the stalls) flanked by some bored kids dragged along by their parents and a middle aged couple of which the shaven headed husband had a swirly pattern carved into his stubble.

Well you don’t get that at the NT…!

For all those who’ve never been to a musical but profess a burning hatred for them, Mamma Mia is probably their worst nightmare. It is the very zenith of crudely strung together scenes with a cringe inducing script labouring from one inappropriate burst of song into another. Even when you know this in advance it’s still a shock when ‘Honey Honey’ crashes in to an otherwise pedestrian opening scene. It feels rather as if the three actresses on stage have taken leave of their senses.

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REVIEWS

BOOK ––– REVIEW Norwegian Wood

by Haruki Murakami (Vintage)

Norwegian Wood was written by Murakami in 1987 and instantly gained a cult following amongst Japan’s youth despite being more poorly received by fans of his earlier work. The story is centred around the life of Toru Watanabe, a university student living through a period of student demonstration, protest and social unrest in Tokyo in the late 1960s.

It contains themes of death - specifically suicide madness and lots and lots of sex. It is an alluring and intoxicating narrative although at times frustrating. The characters think a lot and do little, perhaps providing a symmetry with the real life of a student. However, at times you want to shake the characters into life, turning them away from their indulgent introspection that casts a dark shadow over events.

Most frustrating is the loss of life to suicide. While highly emotive as a concept one can’t help but be numbed by the sheer pointlessness of their deaths.

Murakami is one of my favourite writers. His book ‘The Wind Up Bird Chronicle’ is mesmerising at every turn.

With Norwegian Wood the writing is still sublime, which is remarkable given that it is a translation from Japanese but it is perhaps best read before the sell-by date of youth.

By Rob Forshaw

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FUNDING ––– MENTALISM

If you read the name Chris Morris you will probably think of the satirist behind The Day Today and Brass Eye; a writer that defined his category in the absurdity of modern media culture. However, for far too long we haven’t heard from him, other than the odd forum post or article response under a moniker that only hardcore fans pick-up on. From Chris as Chris there’s been nothing since Nathan Barley, a cameo on The IT Crowd and a report from the CERN Large Hadron Collider.

Those with their faces pressed against his bedroom window will know that Morris has been at work for several years on a project that marks something of a departure for him: a feature film. Boilerhouse/Four Lions is a comedy about suicide bombers, written with Peep Show’s Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain. It seems as apt now as when the project began, given the very recent arrest of 3 UK jihadis, following a very long police and MI5 operation, for plotting to blow holes in aircraft.

To get right to the meat and spunk of the issue Morris has embarked on serious research, talking to everyone from police and security experts to imams and Muslim community workers. There was also a public spat with Martin Amis along the way. Morris’s conclusion, according to the film’s producers, Warp Films, is that it’s a daft as well as a deadly business. According to Warp “Terrorist cells have the same group dynamics as stag parties and five-a-side football teams. It’s about ideology, but it’s also about berks.” The main man’s project, they maintain, “understands jihadis as human beings. And it understands human beings as innately ridiculous.”

Made with funding from Film4 it was partly shot on the streets of Sheffield and at one point locations in the Alps were being scouted to double for terrorist training camps. Official stills released this week seem to be from such scenes. With editing on the film under way, Warp has reported that “its small tornado of industry is now trapped and humming in a box”. It will be intriguing, to say the least, to see what emerges when that box is eventually opened late 2009 or early 2010.

By James Armstrong

A still from Chris Morris’s Four Lions. Kevin Eldon as an armed police officer.

57

REVIEWS

DIE HARD

to groups of drunk bearded men, everyone was chatting loudly. There was none of the typical hushed murmuring that one is accustomed to when entering a large auditorium. As soon as the curtains drew back, the film started. No adverts, no fucking around. I liked that. The film card flashed up “Die Hard” which was greeted with an almighty cheer as the audience in unison broke into applause. People barely had time to settle down since Bruce Willis appears on screen within a minute of the film starting and was greeted with an enthusiastic variety of growls, whoops, cheers, and one person at the back even shouted “yippee ki-yay!”, which everyone else deemed to be a little bit premature.

The film’s highlights include: Bruce clumsily breaking the neck of a generic German henchman, Tony, strapping his corpse to an office chair with a Santa hat on, placing him in an elevator and sending him down to where the hostages are being held. Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman, the arch villain) reads aloud what Maclane (Willis) has written on the corpse, “Now I have a machine gun. Ho. Ho. Ho.” This was met with a wall of noise from the audience; people

I decided quite a long time ago that Die Hard is my favourite film of all time. I cannot remember exactly when this happened; it was a seamless transition, and as soon as it happened it felt like that was the way it had always been.

As a film, it just feels right. A beaten down hero (Bruce Willis) who gets caught with his socks off whilst visiting his estranged wife during her office Christmas party, who has to use his cop training and wits to fight a seemingly unfair amount of bad guys, who are organised by a terrorist entrepreneur (Alan Rickman), who is hell-bent on stealing an impossibly large amount of money from the office vault. Phew.

So, when I was living in Bournemouth and I heard from a friend that the local Odeon cinema would be doing a special screening, there was no hesitation – it was simply a reflex action; grab everyone in the house and get in the car, explain on the way, there’s no time.

As soon as we got to the cinema, we knew we were in for something very special. There was an excited buzz, and the audience was wildly varied; from mildly toasted students to giggling young couples,

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“Hans, Bubi, I’m your white knight!”

What was it you said to me before? “Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker.” To which Maclane bursts out laughing which in turn makes Gruber laugh. This buys Maclane the time to reach back and pull the pistol he has strapped to his shoulder. In a flash, he shoots both Gruber and his last henchman. Gruber stumbles backward and falls through the broken window, temporarily saving himself by grabbing Holly’s wrist.

Maclane frantically fumbles to undo her watch and Gruber looks up in slow motion and starts to turn his gun towards Maclane. Gruber gives a look of terror as he realises that he has lost and slowly starts to fall away from the camera as Maclane successfully undoes Holly’s watch.

Unfortunately, like all good things, it had to come to an end. Die Hard ends with the classic Christmas song “Let it snow” by Sammy Cahn which really sums up why I love this film so much; everyone leaves the cinema singing. I can safely say that it was the best £5 I have ever spent.

Peter van Lanschot still watches Die Hard on a regular basis, but nothing will ever match the experience of that night.

were jumping up and down, throwing popcorn like it was a grenade, and pretending to shoot machine guns into the air.

After narrowly avoiding falling down an elevator shaft, Maclane finds himself wriggling down an air vent. Exasperated, he pulls out a zippo lighter and utters the classic line “come down to the coast, have a few laughs” – this was met with equal gusto and I broke into a wide grin as someone stood up to highfive the person behind them.

During a firefight, Gruber realises that Maclane is barefoot, and turns to his henchman Karl and says “Karl, schieß auf das fenster.” Karl looks confused, so Gruber and the entire audience help him out, “SHOOT THE GLASS!” we all yell.

The ending was tense; a classic standoff. Maclane is bloodied and bruised; he has successfully evaded countless lethal situations by killing many bad guys and has devastated a very expensive Los Angeles office tower in the process. He shuffles in to face Hans Gruber who has pulled a gun on Holly. Gruber makes the classic mistake of talking rather than shooting – saying in his thick German accent “Oh, yes.

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REVIEWS

FUNNY PEOPLE

I was expecting a laugh a minute.

term. Interlinked with the odd quite funny, if not crude joke the story is about how Simmons deals with his illness and in a word – death. A ‘bromance’ is struck between George and Ira and there relationship is one of the centre points of the story.

The film includes a great cameo by Eric Bana (Hulk, Troy) – not renowned for his comedic work, he plays a stereotypical Aussie bloke with great humour, and was very refreshing for the film that was getting rather serious. The film does however give an insight into the life of a comic and is almost autobiographical; anyone with a passion for stand up may find its roots rather interesting.

Although not a real comedy film, it does have its moments and some of the actors’ dialogues are magical, but this is more of a comedy drama (is that even a genre?). The story at times is moving, but the film is nearly 2 and half hours long, which is long for a film of its kind. There is enough material to have made two films, which in hindsight might have been a better idea.

By Amardip Guram

If you’re looking to see a standard comedy film over the coming weeks stay clear of ‘Funny People’. As the title suggests - this should be a funny film, it is littered with great comedic actors of this generation; Seth Rogen (Super Bad, Knocked Up), Jonah Hill (Forty Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up) Jason Schwartzman (The Darjeeling Limited), and the legendary Adam Sandler (I don’t need to mention the films he’s been in).

Perhaps the title and the actors give you a perception before you see the film, I suppose this is only a bad thing if the film is not what you were expecting, this certainly is the case with Funny People. Like a good critic I try and stay away from reviews before viewing a film, so I was expecting a laugh a minute.

George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is a failing comic who had his stardom and whose career is on the slow burn – ironically he is diagnosed with a life threatening illness. Simmons decides to hire a young comedic; Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) to write jokes for him, in an attempt to prolong his career in the short

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MOON

What does three years of isolation on the Moon do to a man? man who built the model of Alien’s Nostromo space craft (apparently he was out of work due to the writer’s strike, and had at a discount because of it) so have a slightly lo-fi but at the same time almost real quality to them, the sheen often found on Transformers computer generated scenes missing.

Unlike Transformers, Moon is a film that asks many questions of the audience and isn’t afraid to let them decide for themselves once the curtain has closed. What does three years of isolation on the Moon do to a man?

Explored are loneliness, ideas of the self, the economics and the ethics of employment in deep space. Left to ponder these questions the film leaves a lasting impact that is independent of the mechanics of the movie – once the quality of the acting, camera work and the gorgeous montages of the dark side of the moon have faded in the memory, there is still a great deal beneath the surface to reflect upon. The film stays with you.

Moon captures what Sci-fi is supposed to be. Great acting, camerawork, subtle effects and near complete believability gives us a look into the future. It lets us form an opinion on that future then reflect it off our present. We decide if the future presented is how we want our future to be, and are given new material with which to understand our now.

By Howard Stredwick

Moon is a film held together by several powerful scenes that will knock you for six.

Directed by David Bowie’s son Duncan Jones, and filmed in less than forty days for a miniscule $5m, it achieves a feat not seen in the genre this summer: it’s really rather good.

Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, a man whose simple name hints at his blue collar origins. For like the crew of Alien’s Nostromo, space has become a day job for Sam – in fact a three year job – as his marathon thirty six month stint as the lone human overseeing mining of H3 on the Moon draws to end. Looking forward to repairing his relationship with his wife and daughter back on earth, the seeming inability of his employer to be able to repair the Earth-Moon real-time satellite up-link has faded into an annoyance rather than a deal breaker. But as his time on the Moon approaches its end, Sam’s mental state seems increasingly unstable.

Then something goes wrong.

Rockwell’s acting is superb. The audience feels his loneliness but also his love for his family. Kevin Spacey voices Sam’s robotic colleague GERTY and fits the bill perfectly too. The camera work is spot on, capturing the claustrophobia of the moon base and the desolation of the moon’s surface.

Moon’s special effects were crafted by the same

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REVIEWS

A WEEKEND ––– OF FINE DINING

One weekend, three restaurants, here is the outcome….

By Carolyn Appleton

Friday Maze

Saturday OXO Tower Brassiere

Sunday Boundry Rooftop

Having been seduced by the ambience, the three successive drinks I was offered and demolished as soon as I arrived, the seven course chef’s menu was an easy choice. It was delicious, but wasn’t without its hiccups, the marinated beetroot, Sairass cheese, pine nuts and cabernet sauvignon dressing had too much cheese in and the John Dory (there was no red mullet), scallops and allioi has a bisque which resembled old socks. My fellow diner had to send back the Cornish lamb and tongue as it was not to order.

However, there were lots of small portions, which is my favourite way of eating and some real highlights, the initial pea veloute and cucumber, lobster salad and the slow roasted quail & mushroom risotto which was delicious. Yum! I was surprised at Ramsey, a man who is notorious for saying menus are too long to have a wine menu which resembled the yellow pages, luckily, I managed to find my way around it with ease and choose a very drinkable white. The fashion crowd were the main clientele and young people aplenty. The service was great, however apparently that’s a rarity from people I’ve spoken to since.

Expect different waiters for the bar, for wine, for taking food from the kitchen, from serving food and picking it up again though, it took us a while to get used to that. Very good for an occasion, I did manage to eat most of the cake they brought me after the full seven courses, before having a tour round the kitchen, which you’ll be glad to know is clean and ship shape. www.gordonramsay.com/maze

An impressive location, an impressive building, and a 180 degree view across the Thames with a roof terrace, what more could you want? Good food I think is the answer.

Whilst Maze had the indulgent factor, Oxo Tower was all about the views. The view was great and the cocktails on arrival went down well. The food does leave something to be desired. The menu didn’t excite; my starter of grilled octopus was rubbery, and there was far too much of it. Trying to be diplomatic, maybe it could have worked better as a main course. The Harissa spiced lamb roasted pink was nice I’ll give you that but I couldn’t finish it and it wasn’t so good I had to eat it all which was disappointing. This could feed several people. Moving onto dessert, usually one seems to have a second stomach for dessert but this didn’t seem to happen, desserts looked good but having been so full from the previous courses there wasn’t any room. Maybe I’d just eaten too much the night before. The service was sporadic, although they did keep our wine glasses topped up.

They did seat us in a draft and I would expect not be put right in the doorway but we can’t all have everything. Maybe we’ll just stick to the cocktails next time; although, final warning, the bar is round the back so you’ll need to sit at the piano to see. Nice view shame about the food Harvey Nicks. www.harveynichols.com

No reservations allowed. On arrival I was asked to stand in the street to wait in the queue, a typical tactic for every aspiring London hangout that wants to look cool. Apparently there were too many people on the rooftop, likely story; I didn’t see anyone come down before I went up.

I just wanted to make sure I hit the 4pm kitchen closing time. It acts like a private members club, greetings on the door, a reception downstairs and the black and white lift décor; once at the top it felt like a holiday in Ibiza, nearly the Blue Marlin but without the beds and the bright sunshine. With plenty of couches and blankets around for those who wanted them so you could cosy up if there was the space. Typical Terrance Conran really.

The tables at the side of the kitchen were our spot though, which was nice. Quick to serve, but quick to run away also, the service was quite amusing as you had to get your order in before the waiter left! The bloody Marys were good despite a crazy amount of pepper in and the variety of breads we had as a starter was lovely. The beer, all bottled, none my fellow diners recognised surprisingly as they are such seasoned drinkers, were actually an art form in themselves. Careful pouring, by oneself or by ones waiter led to cloudy beer with sediment. Not good. The food was good; the poussin was lovely, even if my pronunciation wasn’t. The steak didn’t come to my fellow diner’s order however and the waiter made out that he knew, blatantly not true which was a shame and not so good. The dessert looked lovely but too much for us again; a weekend of fine dining only leaves a small space on a Sunday. The view was amazing and the prices not too painful. Expect something cool but don’t expect the Boundry to stick around when the weather is. www.theboundary.co.uk/rooftop

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Mangals Kebab House Where: Dalston What: Authentic Turkish kebabs How much: Under £10

A GREAT PLACE FOR ––– A CHEEKY PINT

Imagine how many kebab shops there are in London: over 300 is probably a conservative estimate. I’ve been to quite a few of those and Mangals is in the top 2, easily.

If you’ve only ever had a sweaty, leathery, acrid and poisonous ‘ghetto-bab’ before, when half cut, then you’re missing out on the best of 1000’s of years of Turkish civilisation and perfection of the art of bbqing.

Go to Mangals and it will change your view of kebabs forever from guilty drunken filth to a damn fine meal.

For a start, the meat is genuinely marinated, herbed, and expertly bbqed over a charcoal pit, before being served with excellent Turkish flatbread (pide) and top notch salad, pickles and dips. Not forgetting nuclear strength chilli sauce, if that’s your thing.

The atmosphere is laid back, low key & unpretentious – table clothes and candles it isn’t, but good honest food cooked by guys who look like they were grilling before they could walk it is.

You order your food at the counter from a huge selection of meats, kebabs, spices, sauces, combos and styles, and the dude whips it onto the grill straight away while you take a table, bring your own alcohol and wait while the bbq master loads, turns and sizzles your meat into just cooked, moist perfection.

The food is on your table you in less than 10 minutes, it tastes amazing and is not quite as unhealthy as it could be – at least there’s fresh salad, good bread and it’s been bbqed rather than sweated.

Compare this with most people’s experience of a kebab, where the ‘meat’ has been scraped off a factory floor over in Leyton, pressed into the shape of an elephant leg and impaled before being left for days slowly overcooking and festering on a spit while the flies snack on it. And then served up to drunken revelers who lap it up (me included if I can’t get to Mangals).

If you’re in Dalston, like meat and appreciate finely cooked and honest food then you could do much worse than Mangals. Highly recommended. www.mangal1.com

Bradley’s, 42 Hanway Place, W1 1UP. This will be an occasional series devoted to those places near the office that are good for a cheeky pint. They should also be relatively undiscovered with very little danger of being caught out (pint in hand) unless you are really unlucky. This month’s offering is Bradley’s, just off Oxford Street but on a street that many will not have even ventured down. However once you creep cautiously around the corner it’s as though you are in an entirely different part of the city. Bradley’s itself is one part odd and one part heaven. It says it’s a Spanish bar but I am not sure from what part of Spain it is inspired.

It feels very much like a pub. It’s small, very old-school, a bit tacky, grubby and has the most brilliant jukebox ever. Great for a tired leg, stop-off or just a cheeky premeet pint. Prepare to fall in love.

By Rob Forshaw

By Rowan Rosser

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THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT ––– BUTTER

By Nick Parnell

Butter was discovered by Arabs on their travels. Flasks of milk were shaken up by the motion of the camels. This shaking made a glob of fat rise up to the top.

The world record for butter eating is 7 quarter pound sticks of salted butter in 5 minutes by Donald Lerman.

In Quebec, a law existed until July 2008 which stated that margarine must be a different colour from butter. When the law was introduced, the government tried to impose a red margarine before settling on a pale, off-white colour.

In the UK, the Government claims that up to 35% of our Calories can come from fat, with saturated fat – found in butter – contributing to around 10% of our daily Calories.

Charles II paid artists with great butter skills. They made statues of butter, through perseverance and hard will. These butter sculptures were displayed near the front doors of his palaces, showing all the land what butter could be used for.

Butter has featured in the Bible, in Ancient Egyptian texts, in the arsenal of warring Imperial Roman legions and the surgeries of doctors in classical Athens.

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The name ‘butter’ is thought to come from the Sanskrit word ‘bhutari’, which means “the enemy of evil spirits”.

Before the corpse of a member of the Parsee religion is removed from its home, butter is traditionally smeared across its forehead and the dogs of the house are admitted. If the dogs lick the butter, it is supposed to be a sign that the deceased will go to heaven.

Butter became fashionable with royalty when the pampered greyhounds of Queen Elizabeth I were fed a breakfast of buttered toast.

When you move home, if you put butter on your cat’s paws before you let it go outside for the first time the cat will lick off the butter which removes traces of their old territory. This helps them to happily settle into their new home and means they are less likely to get lost!

The centrepiece of the annual Iowa State Fair is a 550lb cow sculpted from butter by Duffy Lyon. The task takes 16 hours to complete.

Among her other butter-built highlights are sculptures of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Elvis Presley, John Wayne and a 400lb version of Country and Western star, Garth Brooks.

The U.S. makes one billion pounds of butter a year.

During the Middle Ages, butter was given an extra golden colour by being mixed with marigold flowers. The marsh marigold is better known as the ‘Buttercup’.

Cows produce the best, sweetest butter, but it has also been made from the milk of many other animals, including goats, sheep, camels, llamas, reindeer, water buffalo, yaks and even horses.

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Ultimate Su n

Roast chicken with lemon, herbs, roast potatoes, vegetables, Yorkshire pudding, stuffing and gr av y. Serve with apple sauce.

Serves 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;6

By Peter Stitson Photography Atsuko Ikeda www.kannonphotography.com Styling Aya Nishimura Thanks to Yoko Kurokawa

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u nday Roast C h ic k e n, p o t a t oe s , v e ge t a bl e s A N D s t u f f i ng ––––

Yor k s h i r e P u ddi ng –––– (Makes 6 Puddings) 1/2 pint plain flour 1/2 pint milk 3 eggs A good pinch of salt Sunflower oil

1 x 2kg free-range organic chicken Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 1-2kg potatoes, peeled 1 lemon (preferably unwaxed) 1 whole bulb of garlic, broken into cloves Handful of fresh lemon thyme Olive oil Handful of fresh rosemary sprigs, leaves picked Peas (4 cups) 6 Carrots 4-6 Parsnips Fresh mint

1. Half fill a pint glass with plain flour and pour into a bowl.

Then add a 1/2 pint of milk. Crack the eggs into the bowl.

Add a good pinch of salt and whisk thoroughly.

2. Rest the mix in the fridge for 15 minutes then sieve into a jug.

3. Heat the oven to 240C/fan 220C/gas 9.

4. Put your pudding tins in the oven for 3 minutes to heat up. Add a little sunflower oil to each tin then half fill them with pudding mix.

5. Cook for 5-7 minutes then turn the oven down to 180C/ fan 160C/gas 4 and cook for another 10-15 minutes.

Remove when they are crisp and cooked through.

The stuffing: 2 onions 10 sage leaves 100g of breadcrumbs 40g butter Salt and pepper to taste 1 egg 1. Make the stuffing: Peel the onions, put them into boiling water, let them simmer for 5-8 minutes, and just before they are taken out, put in the sage leaves for a minute or two to take off their rawness. Chop both of these very fine, add the bread crumbs, seasoning and butter and mix all together with the yolk of an egg. Set aside.

2. Prepare the chicken: Rub the chicken inside and out with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cover the chicken and leave in the fridge until you’re ready to start cooking.

3. Preheat your oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5.

4. Slice the parsnips.

5. Prepare the potatoes: Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil.

6. Cut the potatoes into golf-ball-sized pieces, put them into the water with the whole lemon and the garlic cloves, and cook for 12 minutes.

Drain and allow to steam dry for 1 minute (this will give you crispier potatoes), then remove the lemon and garlic. Toss the potatoes in the pan while still hot so their outsides get roughened up and fluffy - this will make them more crispy when they roast.

7. While the lemon is still hot, carefully stab it about 10 times. Take the chicken out of the fridge and rub it all over with olive oil. Push some of the garlic cloves, the whole lemon and the thyme into the cavity with the stuffing then put the chicken into a roasting tray and cook in the preheated oven for around 45 minutes. Remove the chicken to a plate.

Some lovely fat should have cooked out of it into the roasting tray, so toss the potatoes into this with the rosemary leaves and the parsnips. Shake the tray around, then make a gap in the centre of the potatoes and put the chicken back in. Cook for a further 45 minutes or until the chicken is cooked (you can tell the chicken is cooked when the thigh meat pulls easily away from the bone and the juices run clear), the potatoes are nice and golden and the parsnips are soft but still crunchy.

8. Prepare the vegetables: Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Shell the peas. Chop the carrots. Place the vegetables into the pan with the mint and simmer for 10-15 mins. Drain water and cover pan with lid to keep them warm.

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Gr av y –––– 1 heaped dtsp plain flour A wine glass of red wine or white wine 1 litre organic vegetable, chicken or beef stock 1. When you come to make your gravy, your chicken will be covered and resting and you’ll have your tray of chicken juices.

2. Using a spoon, carefully remove 90 per cent of the hot fat from the tray by angling it away from yourself and scooping off the fatty layer that settles on top.

3. Put the tray back on the hob over a high heat.

4. Add the flour, stir it around and, holding the tray steady with a tea towel in one hand, use a potato masher to mash all the veg to a pulp – don’t worry if it’s lumpy.

5. When everything is mixed and mashed up, add the alcohol to give a little fragrance before you add your stock (the alcohol will cook away).

6. Keep it over the heat and let it boil for a few minutes.

7. Pour the stock into the tray, or add 1 litre of hot water.

8. Bring everything in the pan to the boil, scraping all the goodness from the bottom of the pan as you go.

9. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, or until you’ve achieved the gravy consistency you’re looking for.

10. Get yourself a large jug, bowl or pan and put a coarse sieve over it. Pour your gravy through the sieve, using a ladle to really push all the goodness through. Discard any veg or meat left behind.

11. Serve in a jug.

RANDOMS

NAN GALLAGHER’S ––– RECIPES

Nan Gallagher’s top tips Roll your whole limes on the chopping board to release the juice Rub your hand with fresh parsley to get rid of the smell of garlic

My Gran is amazing and my favorite person in the whole world. She was born in Banbridge, Northern Ireland in 1930, mother to 4 kids (my Dad being one of them).

She has 11 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren and still cooks up a storm.

Teriyaki Steak Ingredients Steak - Get your butcher to finely slice either rump or sirloin (What do you mean you don’t have a butcher? We all have one in Harpenden?)

Lime Juice (2 tablespoons) Soy Sauce (4 tablespoons) Runny Honey (1 tablespoons) Olive Oil (4 tablespoons) Garlic (3 crushed cloves) Spring onions finely sliced (3 tablespoons) Mix ingredients and leave steaks in the marinade for 2 hours – cook on the BBQ

By Sally Bedwood Chief spoon licker

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GREAT LINKS

1. Moodstream by Getty Images – great site for inspirational pictures. http://moodstream.gettyimages.com/

3. Lots of lovely visuals showing everything from CIA rendition flights to a map of the Italian blogosphere. http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/

2. The world’s greatest social media presentation, not written

by Matt, Mo, Anna or Steve. http://www.slideshare.net/ paulisakson/social-media-its-not-what-you-say-that-

4. The Twitter music chart – the 99 most tweeted tunes. http://wearehunted.com/twitter/

5. 1001 rules for my unborn son – live advice from a sardonic yank. http://rulesformyunbornson.tumblr.com/

6. Database of all creative commons licensed sounds. http://www.freesound.org/

7. The optimus tactus keyboard – no keys and can display anything and everything you want. http://bit.ly/27vw25

8. User testing on the fly – a simple test that lets you identify the most prominent parts of your designs. http://www.fivesecondtest.com/

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A ROOM W IT RANDOMS

SHOWBIZ EXCLUSIVE Police caution Kerry over allegations of taking Cocaine.

So, Kerry Katona has finally been dropped by Iceland following photos of her apparently snorting cocaine. She may not be as successful as Jordan in manipulating the media to earn a living, but she certainly manages to stay on the front covers of celeb gossip magazines and continues to write a column in OK! And for five consecutive days last week she made the front page of The Sun! Whether she is slurring words on GMTV, going bankrupt or fighting with her husband, Kerry is still making money selling her story. This keeps the paparazzi outside her house 24/7 – something that affects me more than most. If you think you’re fed up

of reading about her antics – try living opposite her!

Three years ago the paparazzi settled in on a small bench on the corner of my road. Their watchful eyes, along with MTV, have changed the dynamic of the road I grew up on. Every morning at least five overweight and unattractive men gather with their cameras and laptops. A little clan that spend all day talking to each other, but turn into fiercely competitive animals when it comes to getting the best shot at the right moment.

Having lost her £250,000 annual contract with Iceland, Kerry is on the move. Although I’ll miss having a celebrity neighbour who my drunk friends can invite to my 21st birthday party, I’m definitely counting down the days.

What’s next for Kerry? Following images of her rotund belly, my prediction is she will release a fitness DVD in time for Christmas. Despite her tummy tuck and personal trainer, I’m sure it’s part of another cunning plan to make a swift quarter of a million.

Moral of the story: l Never hire a Z-list celebrity with a volatile history and a desire to stay in the media as your brand ambassador. l Never take for granted your celebrity-free road or dull neighbours. l Never believe what you read – she really isn’t fat, they are still together and she is part of my mum’s book group.

By Hannah Dixon

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W ITH A VIEW Paparazzi take their positions as Kerry returns home, the clan of paps temporarily leave the bench to get their shots.

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RANDOMS

Topic: Comedy cocks Focus: Graffiti Reason: Just for laughs Scenario: At paint events/ jams nationwide and also on the street, it has become somewhat customary for artists to precede their ‘piece’ by drawing a comedy cock first. Most of the time they are painted over with the ‘proper piece’ but some have been known to just leave them as is.

Warning: The following gallery may cause offence.

By Finbar Notle

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RANDOMS

OWNER –––

by Paul Robinson

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TOP

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CAMP CARTOON CHARACTERS

5. Snarf He was so fucking annoying, like a bearded Will Young moaning he hasn’t got any poppers on his rider list.

By Jason Ruddy

4. Piglet He was pink and wore pink. Also had a tendency of getting ‘lost’ in the woods. Hmmmm.

3. Bugs Bunny May not be totally gay (recent Bugs Bunny appearances show he has a girlfriend) but is definitely a raging trannie and loves to kiss small bald men with big guns.

2. Snagglepuss If Dale Winton was re-incarnated as a cartoon character this would be him.

1. He-Man Furry pants, wears some gay costume when battling evil, his catchphrase is ‘I have the power’ (and the way he was handling that sword when he said it!). C’mon isn’t that enough evidence?

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RANDOMS

Sir Isaac Newton, discoverer of the principles of gravity, also invented the cat door.

Puppies eyes open 13-15 days after birth

Puppies eyes open 13-15 days after birth Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band is the first British rock album to have the lyrics for every song printed on the back cover

If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populated in the world, ahead of Indonesia, Brazil and Japan.

Over 1000 vides are watched on YouTube every second

12 FACTS

London has the more twitter users than any other city in the world

Every minute 625 new blogs posts are published

There are some 20 million acres of grapes planted across the world; grapes are ranked as the worlds number 1 fruit crop as a result.

Snowdon stands 1,085 metres (3,560 feet) high). Each year 350,000 people reach the summit.

Bubbles the chimp and Ben the rat are two of Jacksonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most famous pets, but he also befriended a ram called Mr Tibbs, a python called Crusher and Louie the llama.

The M25 has 10,606 lights along its length and 2959 illuminated signs

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