The Other Side December

FREE DECEMBER ‘09

all the best in clock striking shenanigans

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A RECORD LABEL

DRINK WHILE YOU THINK AT the best PUB QUIZZES

www.theothersidemag.co.uk

welcome

END OF A DECADE [ it’s nothing special ] n a few weeks the decade will be over. 10 years ago, when the clock struck midnight, half the world was hiding in a bunker grasping their favourite blanket with an endless supply of baked beans and corned beef – fearful that the Millennium bug was gonna take our 20th Century asses back to the dark ages. Old Testament, real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies.

Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes. The dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria...

Little did we know that 10 years later we’d be tweeting about our lunches and writing on our mates’ walls while the global economy crumbles about our very ears.

At least I can say I’ve achieved something this decade (no, not the ability to grow facial hair).

Making this magazine that you’ve got in your hands is one of the small pleasures in life and for want of sounding like a teary eyed Oscar winner it seems like the ideal time to thank everyone who has been involved over the years and helped take the Other Side from an eight page black and white photocopy to the bundle of joy it is today. You know who you are and you should be well chuffed. I am, and will continue to be for a long time to come. Ed. x

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the other side | december 2009

CONTENTS TOS GUIDE 04

CARDOROWSKI COMMENTS

06

RICHMOND FEELS LET DOWN

08

SOUTH OF THE RIVER

10

POP-UP SHOPS

12

THE QUIZ SHOW

15

SEVEN STOPS

19

MUSIC MINDS

22

NEW YEAR’S EVE IS NIGH

24

Reviewed: Bunny and the Bull

26

COLD TURKEY ALTERNATIVE

28

SHORT STORY

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OFFSIDE REF!

We enjoy a close relationship with our readers, and to honour that union we conducted a reader survey (on Tuesday) to find out what you want in the mag.

From the PLETHORA of responses (cheers Steven) it was clear a guide to Christmas presents was needed On your own Bake a load of shortbread in the shape of stars, put a hole in the top and lace it up with ribbons – bam – chrimbo tree decs. Or box ‘em up and wrap nicely – ideal for old people, in laws and all those other people you have no idea what to buy for.

TOSers TOSers this month: Sam, Adam, Nath, Kayleigh, Josh, Sara, Ed, Chloe, Cardorowski, Holly, Joe, Amy, Becca & Nico.

Become a TOSer: www.theothersidemag.co.uk Advertising enquiries: advertising@tosmag.co.uk Editorial enquiries: info@tosmag.co.uk

Not a watch Check out these Casio-style bracelets, given a golden overhaul.

Designed by Denise Julia Reytan, these original pieces of jewellery will bring back memories of being

© No reprinting of anything without our permission!

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late for secondary school. Find the full range at www.reytan.de HOT STUFF Head to Magma on Clerkenwell Road, where you can buy some beautiful limited-distribution magazines or choose from a collection of great books about photography, animation and print. There are also plenty of little artistic bits and bobs to fill out the coolest stocking ever. Paint your own Matryoshka doll anyone?

KAW’s Christmas cuisine Our very own illustrator Kayleigh is fed up with not being paid to make our pages look beautiful.

So she has set up her own little business selling all kinds of wonderful homemade products that are perfect for your loved ones. You can order Christmas cards, tea towels, 2010 calendars and prints. Drop her an email at kawcandraw@hotmail.com and make your demands.

Homemade Keeping with the locally produced theme, check out Etsy.com, where you can buy some great handmade items from individual producers, then fob them off as your own!

They have all kinds of things from cards to candy.

Let us make all your decisions @ www.theothersidemag.co.uk

cARDOROWsKI

OLD MAN cURMUDgEON HE MAY bE, bUT OUR bELOvED cARDOROWsKI Is NOT TOUcHED

bY APPLE’s IPHONE, NOR ITs cAvALcADE OF WONDROUs APPs...

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learned a new word today; appathy (sic). Meaning: I don’t give a flying monkey’s what’s on your iPhone. Now App off and take your sodding applycations with you. I know full well that I am currently positioning myself alongside canute before the relentless and remorseless tide, but doesn’t someone have to stand in the sand and draw a line knowing full well that the breakers will come and wash it away, leaving one sodden and sneered at? Don’t they?

Do I? Well, yes, quite frankly I do. someone just showed me the fruits of an app and I haveta say I was quite staggered. He took a picture of a bottle of beer and then he 1970-ed it! And then he

1960-ed it! And then he Polaroid-ed it and fi sh-eye-ed it, sepia-ed it and mag-ed it! All at the touch of a button. shazzam! I am amazed that people have either the time or the inclination to fritter away their brief, mortal coil in such a frivolous and unproductive manner. I know, from deep and hurtful experience, that the “THE FACT THAT ONE CARRIES THE POSSIBILITY TO DO THE WORK DOES NOT MAKE ONE A MUSICIAN" creation of anything of value is the fruit of great toil and the product of hard won knowledge.

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To think that one might become Ansel Adams or cartier-bresson at the fl ick of an ibrick is appalling.

In the time it took to snap a pic of a bottle and ‘app’ it, one could have stopped, thought, with a ‘proper’ camera and mebbe taken a snap that mighta become a photograph. One coulda learned about exposure, or framing, or depth of field, or even the manipulation of pixels if one wasn’t so eager to show the world what a modern bottle of Nastro looks like when given the ‘magazine’ treatment.

For flying monkey’s sake what are we coming to?

Do we really think that the slimline brick can contain the whole wide world? Do we really believe that any of that makes our lives one iota richer? Really?

I don’t want to be the spoilsport or a killjoy, but, y’see sport involves a certain amount of exercise; of muscle, organ and mind (and don’t get me started on the whole Wii thing).

Joy involves a certain metaphysical transportation, d’ye not think? Otherwise we’re talking about nothing more than an elaborate game of canasta, the shameful eruptions of a Wank, or a Paper Toss with wind speed indicators. Is that really the sum total of our civilisation’s achievements?

That we can footle away precious hours throwing virtual paper into a virtual bin aided or encumbered by virtual wind?

Pretty much. Or should that be virtually?

And then, this mate, who has a proper piano in his house, and a trumpet and various sons’ guitars and the like, has all sorts of musical apps on his brick that allow him to play/sing/strum musical intervals/chords and progressions while plugged in to block out ‘extraneous noise’.

Again, I know the argument that one is not always at home bUT when exactly does one sing intervals aloud in public? And why? It’s a fi ne tool, an app one might care to have in a rehearsal or classroom if one was a fully

tooled-up muso, but to have it on the off chance that one might have five minutes to spare waiting for a train/bus/colleague seems utterly self-deluding.

The fact that one carries the possibility to do the work does not make one a musician. I heard recently that the very great sonny Rollins who blew in and outta town recently, aged nearly 80, lost his ‘thing’ and spent

all I wanted was OUT, a breath of fresh air. That was when I remembered that there’s an app called compass.

Now that one probably only shows NsEW, which is pretty pointless in a shopping Mall that lacks any point or direction, but an app that could lead you to the Exit? To an escape hatch? That my friends might be worth the investment.

“joy involves a certain metaphysical transportation” years playing scales on a New York bridge trying to reconnect. successfully it seems, despite all the extraneous noise of passing gulls and traffic. There is no app for that and to think that you can do it in your study with an ibrick is a nonsense that defies all known evidence.

Having said all that, there was one app I noted that I mighta had a use for recently. I was there in Johnny El, (serves me right you might think) and I completely lost my bearings.

The aroma of the fragrance floor, the heady funk of delirious shoppers and the fear-scent of overgrown men in winter garb hung heavy. I got all woozy and headed deeper into the tumult and retail opportunities, when

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so, there you have it. I am not waiting for the increased availability of the next brick in the apple-wall of world-domination, but for an app that has actual daily applications for a technophobe such as I. Who has too little time for the virtual papertoss or the Inconsequential snap coupled with a ravenous desire to encounter real people in real time and real space? call me a throwback, if ya must, call me blinkered, if ya can get through my fog of antipathy, call me anything you like, just call round and have a chat. If you can be bothered.

Hear more from Cardorowski @ www.theothersidemag.co.uk

RICHMOND

show you should never get swept away or be impressed by any one.

Ever.

I love Charlie Brooker, but I am increasingly having to defend him as he risks over exposure. His curmudgeonly, I-hate-everything schtick is slowly becoming ever present and slightly tiresome.

Yes, he was responsible for some of the finest TV in recent times (Newswipe is peerless, and the one of Gameswipe was just as good, and zombie/Big Brother hybrid Dead Set was scary, funny and brutal), but now he’s popping up on Buzzcocks and there he is again on one of those More4 ads where faces talk amusing shite for a couple of minutes.

Which is all well and good once, but they show those idents every bloody day so the joke and the face wears as thin the plot of Jennifer Aniston’s latest film.

What happens when your heroes let And this is a media you down? HAve a cry or move on savvy, smart and funny like a big boy? man who has written pages of witty bile about by adam richmond celebrity non-entities and shit TV and now is going to be in Leap Year shows and should know better _ the trailer of which promises than this.

I briefly fell in love with Marina a film that will be one of the sappiest, shittest, most offensively Hyde (yes, it should be quite clear bland (and most offensive to Irish by now that I a lefty-leaning, sandal people) romantic comedies of all wearing, political correctness has time. And when you’re going up not gone mad Guardian reading against the likes of PS I Love You smug bastard). Not only does she and The Wedding Planner, that’s look like an icy-cool blonde posh some feat. Yes, it’s only a trailer, but bird in her byline picture but she watch it yourself without wanting also happens to have produced, to tear your eyes out and hunger in the past year, consistently well-written, sometimes funny, for the days of Baby Boom.

Nice one Amy. Not only do I sometimes hard-hitting articles. look like a twat but just goes to And she can write about football n the last issue I laid into the actors that sell their talent down the river for a big fat juicy Hollywood buck, waste their skills in bloated action epics and struggle to bring depth to a soggy mess of a script (like John Cusack, Samuel L Jackson or Thomas Hayden Church).

And then I asked why couldn’t they be more like Amy Adams, who seemed to be able to be in both big films like Enchanted and understated indie gems like Junebug. Then what did she go and do? She starred in the honestto-blog shitness of Julie & Julia

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hell is for heroes

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too. But then I found out that not only did she work on the celebrity desk at The Sun (The fucking Sun for god’s sake), but she also used to fuck Piers Morgan. Anyone who can share space, let alone bodily fluids with that silly-putty faced, arse cunt of a cunt must have a serious problem with judgement – which, in way, could bode well for me … but I digress.

It’s not just people. It’s bands, directors and writers. I gave up being a Roman Polanski apologist (the man made Chinatown! and

accept that I’ve made bad choices.

And when we’ve banged on about how great Ricky Gervais is, for example, when he goes and makes something rubbish like Night at the Museum or bland like Ghost Town, it’s just further grist for the naysayers’ mill. It casts a shadow over his excellent and groundbreaking work on the 11 O’Clock Show and The Office, and gifts cynics the opportunity to nod sagely and say: “Told you he was overrated and shit.”

A lot of people could never

hero turned villain encourages people to never expose themselves, never fall in love, never idolise people.

Call me a giant softie, but I’d rather get hurt thanks very much. I’d rather wear my cultural reference points on my sleeve and celebrate and tell people about the things that inspire me. If they turn out to be a massive Holocaust denier, I’ll deal with that then; as it is, the curmudgeons and snarks can sit on their high horses and whistle for all I care.

“Call me a giant softie, but I’d rather get hurt” Rosemary’s Baby! and Chinatown for fuck’s sake) because I realised that whatever someone has done, be it artistic or humanitarian or whatever, it can’t really explain or justify anything/everything else you do – especially if you’ve drugged and sodomised a 13-year-old girl. Why do I even try to defend my swiftly slipping heroes?

Well, because I’ve wrapped up some of my identity in these people. I’ve invested in them. I’ve vouched for them and when they do shit things or turn out to drug and sodomise a 13-year-old girl it reflects badly on me. Badly on my judgement. So I defend them.

I cling on to that nugget of good that I fell for in the first place, because heaven forbid I have to

forgive Bob Dylan when he went electric. A lot more people can’t forgive him now he’s recorded a fucking Christmas album. I couldn’t give a toss, but it does upset me that Radiohead have recorded a song for the new Twilight movie (or Twishite as I like to call it – take that you Twi-hard fucksticks fucks, oh and while I’m at it, read a proper book you infantile cock muffins).

Whoever their hero might be, people feel each slip and slide as personally as a slap in the face.

When someone they admire does something they can’t/won’t countenance it’s like they’ve squeezed your mum’s arse while winking at you.

But why take it so personally when every inevitable let down and

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To write for the magazine vist www.theothersidemag.co.uk

south london

s my flatmate announced – “they accepted my offer on the flat” – I still felt shocked and bereft. Our three years together in South London bliss were over. No more Brockwell Park, no more Mango Landin’, no more kindly teenage crack dealers...

After a year East, we had stumbled south of the river in a dazed frenzy to escape the skinnyjeaned masses pretending to be working class. And there, Brixton welcomed us like a big bosomed mother who had a warm embrace and smelled of weed.

But now, while she will reside in Herne Hill come January, I may have to move in with Dalstondwelling friends.

Now, for some people – trilbywearing hipsters, for example – this may sound like a gain.

What’s Brixton in comparison to the cool streets of East London?

Why wouldn’t I want a postcode synonymous with Nathan Barley?

I’ll tell you why. Because I did my time in Whitechapel. Because I’m too lazy to be cutting edge. And because I love South London.

Overlooked in terms of culture reportage and providing a halfdecent night out, south of the river gets a periodical beating from those who live north of Waterloo.

And if they do come and visit us, they go to Clapham. Jeez.

The particular jewel in the crown of the south – albeit a roughed up diamond bought with drug money – is Brixton. Nowhere else in this city can compete in terms of edge, atmosphere and quirk. Without trying, Brixton manages to house yuppies, artists, evangelists and dope-selling rastas

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brixton rules ok

Sara Mccorquodale tries to convince us all that south london doesn’t smell of poo and wee.

Apparently it’s got lots going on

comfortably within its policecordoned-off-cos-there’s-been-ashooting borders.

And while it may look coarse and feel menacing, there are places to fall in love with – they’re just not right there, in a row in front of you, a la Upper Street.

There’s the Dogstar on Cold Harbour Lane or the White Horse on the hill if you want a grimy night out. The Hive down a cobbled lane off Brixton Station

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Road for Bloody Marys and brunch, not to mention Rosie’s Café in the Market and The Lounge in Atlantic Road.

For music, the Academy is the obvious choice but The Windmill in Blenheim Gardens is the place to hang out if you want to catch the next emerging band to namedrop.

Jamm gives stage time to all kinds of acts from indie introverts to grime impresarios and The Effra on Kellett Road has live jazz every

BriXTon BeauTies The ritzy, coldharbour lane Brixton sW2 1JG Old-fashioned cinema with cosy theatres, live music nights and various art classes. shows mainstream blockbusters and budget indie-f licks.

The Windmill, 22 Blenheim Gardens Brixton sW2 5BZ Out of the way venue showcasing bands before they’re big. Perfect for upand-coming acts rosie’s cafe Brixton Market

saturday in traditional old-man boozer surroundings.

And then there’s The Ritzy. Ah the Ritzy, how I love you. You’re so much more than just a cinema.

With its ornate exterior and cosy theatres, this little gem is the perfect place to watch the latest indie marvel or mainstream fl ick. Live reggae emanates from the bar and the weekly comedy club hosts some of the best new talent, while drumming

Made famous by The Observer and loved by a band of faithful regulars, Rosie’s creations are lovingly made and served on mismatched china.

The effra, Kellett road, Brixton sW2 1eB Old man boozer with saturday night live jazz and snug ambience.

White horse, Brixton hill sW2 1qn Unkempt pub, frequented by friendly, if questionable, characters.

dogstar, coldharbour lane Brixton sW9 8lq Dirty bar with comedy nights, diverse djs and rehearsal rooms upstairs.

The hive Brixton station road sW9 8pa A real find of a restaurant, perfect for brunch and cosy dinners. Exemplary cocktails.

Jamm, 261 Brixton road sW9 6lh Owned by basement Jaxx, the acts playing here are diverse and unpredictable as are the djs.

workshops are commonplace.

And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to why south London does not deserve your vitriol. I’ve not even touched on the wonders of battersea, Kennington or East Dulwich.

If you want to hang out in Walkabouts and O’Neills, then by all means stay on the northern high streets. If you want to be accompanied by synthetic tryhards who describe themselves as

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musicians/film-makers but are, by trade, admin temps, be on your merry way to Old street. but for something different, that’s organic, diverse and not going to be satirised by charlie brooker, bring yourself to south London. It will welcome you with open arms. but a word of advice – leave your trilby at home.

For the best of London visit ww.theothersidemag.co.uk

POP-UP SHOPS

by

op up shops have been puzzling me. For a while the words rested at the edge of my consciousness, the meaning unformed. In my mind a pop-up shop was like a pop-up book, colourful and made of paper, a Jolly Christmas Postman for the over 12s.

Imagine my disappointment when I saw the brick-and-mortar reality – from Flash (the restaurant in the Royal Academy) to monthly

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vintage sales in Truman Brewery to Dr Martens’ pop-up in Spittalfields – pop-up shops sell fast, and they sell temporary.

The fashion crowd love them, because as soon as the hoi polloi find out about them, they disappear, leaving a whiff of organic asparagus wraps and vintage Gina shoes in their wake.

Pop-up shops are so of the now: people are into them because other people are into them. And I can no longer ignore them. If you are a band you should generally

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chloe

george

have performed in one (The Dead Weather to name but one). If you are an artist you’ll mostly be showing your work there by night, as cocktails and cupcakes cooked by a pseudo-feminist with a quiff and a vintage Hermes scarf are served to a knowing crowd.

Perhaps it should be celebrated, this inclusive approach to using space, this inventive embrace of the alternative, this mixing of function. Play a gig in an Oxfam shop; knit in a pop-up shop; wear your shoes on your head; open a restaurant in your living room.

In capitalist reality they are just another way to sell things to people with the concentration

“pop-ups provide a perfect way to keep things edgy and off the Primark scum’s radar”

span of ... oooh, something shiny.

They pressure us to act now before everything sells out. Often they sell vintage and second hand, or it used to be naff but now it’s cool (Barbour, Dr Martens), the explosion in popularity of which appeals to people’s need to keep their tastes exclusive. What with t’internet breaking and spreading new fashions far and wide the mainstream can hop on the leggings bandwagon before you can say Agnes Deyn is a twat. As people thrive on feeling like they have found something special that others aren’t ‘in the know’ enough to find out about pop-ups provide a perfect way to keep things edgy

and off the Primark scum’s radar.

It’s a race to find out information first, and protect your alternative material from mainstream cooptation.

It’s understandable why people want to protect their knowledge: it is property that’s fiercely guarded, which makes us what we are.

Because the problem is, as soon as something gets too trendy, we lose interest.

Bandwaggoning gets tiresome pretty quickly in a world where everything is tweeted and retweeted and shelf lives get shorter and shorter.

Once they reach a tipping point, and enough people are into the latest thing, people like me won’t like these things (or won’t want to

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like them). When enough people have decided that the intimate setting of Union Chapel is a good place to see a gig, that festivals are fun because you get to drink and listen to bands in fields, that Broadway Market has an amazing array of cheap second hand clothes … they kind of lose their edge.

And heaven forfend that happen.

What’s a scenester to do?

So we buy more, but more of a different type of thing, in yet another try-hard attempt to distinguish us from the crowd.

And we always need to buy more, and buy new (even if new is old), because we’re convinced these things make us what we are, that our identities are anchored in spending (both time and money).

And it goes back round again, as things ‘have their day’ once more – the pencil skirt, the jumble sale, the floral tea set, which are not new but have been in hibernation long enough to feel shiny and ready for us to devour.

Like everyone else, I will seek out the new until I have convinced myself that I was there first. I feel put out when people out-know me and triumphant when I out-know them. Maybe I’ll grow up one day… but I doubt it when it feels so warm and wrong to trump an acquaintance’s ‘I saw Florence and the Machine in Union Chapel’ story with my own. To be fair, my story was better – smaller venue, less people knew about her, she was actually good then – and I saw her first, OK?

To write for the magazine vist www.theothersidemag.co.uk

quiz

ub quizzes – where you are bound to find at least one Egghead or 15-1 or Blockbuster reject. Just like on the odd occasion you might be lucky enough to find a quizmaster who transports his golden microphone around in a briefcase.

Generally though, the pub quiz at The Lion or The Gate is just as likely to be run by a man who hasn’t showered in a week and thinks Peter Ince was the first black captain of England.

Yet, we still trundle along because we think we know a bit about culture and more to the point can’t resist the slim possibility of one minute worth of free pouring behind the bar.

But what really goes into a pub quiz, and more to the point who wants to spend half the week searching Wikipedia, Heat and teletext in search of the perfect question?

Mike Smith – quizmaster at the Donglemans Arms in Winchester, thank you very much – quietly informs me that there are many pub quiz generators available online. But they only offer questions like “What was Mickey Mouse’s original name?”

Smith follows a long family history of quizmasters. In the 1700s one of his great grandfather’s ancestors worked closely with local government in Winchester, quizzing

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g a m e

peasants on the whereabouts of a then so-called modern day ‘Robin Hood’.

Smith’s great grandfather used to run a quiz for politicians during the Suffragette campaigns on women’s rights, his grandfather Tom Smith ran the first pub quiz

time by

sam

lassman

In which the other side team muse on london’s finest pub quizzes. and all we won was a double vhs of lethal weapon and lethal weapon 2... in the UK in 1927 with most questions set on the Great War, Jazz and Prohibition. Tom also ran quizzes with the aid of Noel Coward during the war, keeping spirits up among the older folk.

Sure they were camp, but boy were they informative and fun.

However, Smith’s father Alan, didn’t uphold family tradition and instead learnt his trade as a window cleaner. “Gramps was less than happy when dad decided to ignore the long running Smith tradition of quizzery. I had no choice but to resume something that started in the 18th Century”.

Mike is now 52 and lives alone in a small cottage just outside the main city. His true love is questions. He works for an East Anglian TV channel as a researcher and explains that most of his material comes from reading and watching the TV. “You’ve got to have a soap question, a music question and one about sport. I watch EastEnders, Corrie and Hollyoaks religiously, except Tuesday and Thursday when I run the quizzes”. At the weekend Smith watch 14 hours of sport looking for that trick question that gets a few blokes umming on a Tuesday night.

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His most embarrassing moment came back in 1992 when he mistakenly claimed that The French Revolution took place in 1779 as opposed to the correct answer of 1789. “There were three people with the correct answer and I marked it as wrong, I was absolutely gutted and had to take two weeks off.”

He tells me that one of the perks of being a fountain of knowledge is the ability to hit the jackpot on the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? quiz game. Mike has made over £8,000 in the last six months.

At Mike’s quiz, teams huddle in corners, coming up with puntastic and filthy sounding team names, eyeing up the competition and looking at the jar of pound coins on the bar...

The winnings today are a hefty £73 as it’s rolled over from the week before. Team members have already grabbed the pen and taken control of writing the answers down. As the first question strikes and the murmurings begin, a smile draws across Smith’s face, he is at one with the quiz and in control of what is taking place in front of him. Smith was born to do this. Asking obscure questions to an increasingly drunk and annoyed crowd.

he quiz covers popular culture and current affairs, and having read a copy of The sun this week on the tube, I came well prepared. being a dedicated reader of Heat will give you an advantage.

The questions consist of four rounds: the week’s news, fashion (where I think I claimed most of our points) general knowledge and music. To give you an idea of the level we are operating at here, a typical question would be: How many sugababes have there been since they started?

It’s six by the way.

The next question was naming the original line up.

Mutya buena, Keisha buchannan and siobhan Donaghy, just in case you were unsure. sadly, the regular quizmaster Jodie did not make it, and the host was a bit of a twat who loved the sound of his own voice; he dragged out the quiz for three hours. There are intervals with chances to win extra prizes, such as a round of shots for your team, by completing tasks like constructing and throwing an airfix kit the furthest, kazoo karaoke and making the most lifelike plasticine model of bruce Forsyth.

Anyway – and here is the thing about the quiz – the scores are aggregated and the winner is the highest overall score after however many weeks the quiz is running for (this was week one).

The prize is a slap up meal at the Queen’s Head and some bottles of wine or something, nice but nothing to write home about.

The prize for the night is the bar kitty, which was up to £190, this is all based on the last quick

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we were robbed by amy wooster

The Old Queen’s Head Pub Quiz, Essex Road Tuesdays 8pm, £2 per person,six people per team fire question that we were assured was really hard and no one would get right, in which case a rollover situation occurs. so, what was the really tricky no one will ever get it question?

Are you ready, here goes: in the film Back to the Future, at what speed does the delorean have to reach to travel through time?

You know it? Well shockingly for an all girl group (I have an older brother and I have watched that film a thousand times), it’s 88mph. confident in our answer, I race up to the front and due to my speed, agility and proximity to the stage, lo and behold, we've won! but all is not fair in pub quizzes, as I found out the hard way, as two other groups present the correct answer and we move into a pick-the-winner out-of-a-hat scenario. Our name did not get pulled out of the hat and some rowdy lads are splashing the cash around Upper street as we speak. gutted.

Truly gutted.

scOREs ON THE DOOR snacks 9/10 It’s table service for drinks and food and they serve the full menu until about half 10, so you can have sausage and mash or burger and chips while you quiz. The one lost mark was for the lack of reasonably priced bacon flavoured potato based snacks where the Duchess of Kent really came into its own.

Quiz Master 4/10 Think he used to be on coronation street or something, but was just such an arrogant arse.

Was trying to have banter with the crowd but frankly we didn’t want it, plus he wasn't funny.

Prizes 10/10 There are toys and props on the tables, so despite loosing out on the big one, I have got myself a pot of plasticine and a kazoo to take home, also won an Old Queen’s Head compact mirror for my bruce Forsyth model.

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quiz

by nathan may

booby prize snacks Duchess of Kent, Liverpool Road, Tuesday 8.00pm, £1 per person f you are looking for a cosy pub to hibernate in this winter, the Duchess of Kent on Liverpool Road in Islington could easily become your second home. And on a Tuesday, there is an excuse to sit there all evening without that couple on a first date pointing and laughing at you and suggesting you’re a lonely alcoholic.

You will definitely need to persuade some of your smarter friends to spend the evening with you however, as this quiz is no easy ride. It is a general knowledge quiz, with all kinds of random topics. Be prepared to rack your brains, some of the questions will plague your nightmares for the rest of the week. Even the classic picture round, which should provide the seasoned quiz-goer with some light relief whilst still thinking about that Greenland question, is harder than a masters in Latin.

They do a nice line in frazzles too. Who could possible refuse a pack of the finest bacon imitation potato snack known to man. Beware though, they retail at a staggering one hundred pence.

There is also a fine selection of beers and guest ales. The wine list is extensive, and I’m told a few glasses of the house white really helped in coming up with some of our more inventive answers.

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the dartmouth arms quizmaster NAME: Nick May WHO ARE YOU? I am the Dartmouth Arms inn keeper. I’ve been the publican here for 11 years.

WHERE ARE YOU FROM? I was born in and have lived in various places in the borough of Camden all my life.

WHAT TYPE OF QUIZ IS IT? Our quiz is usually general knowledge, but occasionally we’ll do a specialist film or music night.

WHY DO YOU DO IT? The reason I do this is for the pure fun of it. It’s great to see a

room full of happy people.

WHY IS YOUR QUIZ DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHERS? The thing that makes our pub quiz different is that it’s irreverent. We have a laugh, and there’s none of that pretentiousness that you get with some quizzes.

WHY IS YOUR QUIZ GOOD? If you come last, you’re not made to feel stupid. This is a friendly, inclusive place.

HOW MUCH ARE YOUR PRIZES WORTH? Our prizes vary from a £33.33 bar tab to cinema vouchers.

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Scores on the door Team on team banter: 4/10 Quizmaster Billy: 7/10 Décor: 9/10 Bar staff: 10/10 Average price of snack: 1/10

PULL OUT AND KEEP »

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A NIGhT OF BANDS AND BOwLING 1

he legendary TOs christmas party just had to be our star feature. but with good reason, as Friday December 4 promises to be a helluva night down at bloomsbury bowl. How many other christmas parties can offer great food, bowling, live music and DJs? The night sees three cracking new bands perfrom live. Planet Earth and sunderbans both come hotly tipped by record-label-ofthe-moment Young and Lost club with My Tiger My Timing headlining the night. Not to mention some rather special guests to DJ into the early hours.

Planet Earth have been busy, sharing stages with the likes of Laura Marling and Herman Dune and supporting Noah and the Whale on their UK tour.

The release of their debut single bergman Movies on Y&L in

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The Other Side &

PRESENT:

Young and Lost Club

A night of bands and bowling

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planet earth <?

Sunderbans

& Young and Lost Dj’s

@ BLOOMSBURY BOWL

FRIDAY 4TH DECEMBER ADVANCE TICKETS £4 GO TO WWW.THEOTHERSIDEMAG.CO.UK

March was greeted with rave reviews. The band encapsulates the pop folk genre and play delightful ditties sure to warm the cockles of your heart.

We’re really excited to have sunderbans playing live too.

The trio offer a sound from the

darker side of indie, catchy and intelligent. Their myspace page should pique your interest, with Road Kill the standout track.

Lyrically, they lean to the darker side of things – “I saw you in the dark light, I bet you wish you had your friends around” from the resonant I saw You In The Dark Light – but while it may be morbid, it’s never morose.

My Tiger My Timing will headline the night with their upbeat indie electro. Female singer Anna vincent presides over catchy synth work on songs that pull you off your chair and towards the stage. With something of the Metronomy’s about this band, they will be the perfect headliner. »

La Clique Chalk Farm The Roundhouse - Tickets £25

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Impossible to describe and impossible to resist. A sexy, funny and dangerous experience, La Clique’s heady cocktail of cabaret, new burlesque, circus sideshow and contemporary variety has taken the world by storm. We’ve been warned that if you sit near the front you might get a little bit wet, umbrellas are certainly recommended.

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5 6 Relive your childhood Natural History & Science Museum Free

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Get off at South Ken and wander through that tunnel until the right museum calls you. The Natural History Museum has the Wildlife Photographer of the Year on, which is always something special. Head to the Science Museum and push eight year olds out of the way in the Launchpad’s sandpit.

The Tsarina’s Slippers Royal Opera House Until 8th December

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Opera is not top of the list when it comes to nights out, but there’s something beautiful and wintery about being cooped up in the stalls to be transported somewhere magical and unknown.

Tchaikovsky’s Cherevichki (The Tsarina’s Slippers) is a little-known work and rarely staged outside Russia. Based on a popular story by Gogol.

The naTional Gallery FREE until Feb 21

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Here are three things you don’t normally hear in the same sentence, The National gallery, prostitution and drugs. The National has just added ‘The Hoerengracht’ (1983–8), by American artists Ed and Nancy Kienholz, which has transformed the sunley Room into a walk-through evocation of Amsterdam’s Red Light District.

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7 Friday niGhT FisT FiGhT January 22nd 2010 9pm-2am

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Every couple of months at catch, Friday Night Fist Fight takes over shoreditch. Resident DJs will be spinning electronica, post-punk and new wave until the early hours with a couple of very special guests to be announced over the next few weeks.

coloGne chrisTMas MarKeT Southbank, Waterloo

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Everyone loves a market and at christmas they seem to be just about everywhere. The southbank is no exception, as the area between the Eye and Festival Hall is transformed into a festive promenade. You will be able to purchase all realms of tat, german sausages, gingerbread and plenty o’ mulled wine. Imagine being a kid (who can drink) and just can’t wait for christmas morning...

LISTINGS Tuesday 1st Dec The Yellow Moon Band + Flight Of Kites + Echotone / Queen of Hoxton / £5adv Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Orchestra Xmas Special / Ronnie Scotts / From £20 Wednesday 2nd Dec Tori Aoms / Jazz Cafe / Free Thursday 3rd Dec Amadou And Mariam / The Forum / £17.50 The Cribs / Brixton Academy / £16.50 Friday 4th Dec TOS Party / Bloomsbury Bowl / £4 adv Saturday 5th Dec WARP 20: Battles + Broadcast / The Coronet / £25 Fever Ray / The Forum / £22.50 Dylan Moran / Shaftesbury Apollo / From £20 The Fifth Element (16:45) Superman (20.45) / Pinewood Studios Sunday 6th Dec Alice Cooper / Hammersmith Apollo / £33.50 Lee Hurst / The Fym Fyg Bar / £12 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (15.30), Full Metal Jacket (19.30) / Pinewood Studios

Tuesday 8th Dec Shakin Stevens / Islington Academy /£23 Athlete / Shepherd’s Bush Empire / £18.50 Time Out presents... For One Night Only / Bloomsbury Theatre / £20 Wednesday 9th Dec Wainwright Family Christmas / Royal Albert Hall / From £35 Friday 11th Dec The Bluetones / Koko / £16 Friendly Fires Xmas Party / The Coronet / £20 Saturday 12th Dec Good Shoes / ULU / £10 Sunday 13th Dec Florence and the Machine / Brixton / try ebay Peaches / Koko / £14 Tuesday 15th Dec Devandra Banhart / Shepherds Bush Empire / £15 Wednesday 16th Dec Julian Casablancas / The Forum / £20 Modest Mouse / Electric Ballroom / £17.50 Thursday 17th Dec Electric Six / Islington Academy /

£12.50 BattleActs! / The Dogstar, SW9 / £5 Sunday 20th Dec Lucy Porter / Hen and Chickens Theatre / £5

art

Wild Thing / Royal Academy / £8 (until Jan 24) Turner and the Masters / Tate Britain / £10.50 (until Jan 31) The Museum of Everything / NW1 / Free (until dec 23) John Baldessari / Tate Modern / £10 (until Jan 10)

Theatre

Speaking in Tongues / Duke of York’s / From £10 (until Dec 12) Aladdin / New Wimbledon Theatre / From £15 Twelfth Night / Duke of York’s / From Dec 19 Pains of Youth / National Theatre, Cottesloe / From £10

To be featured on the Other Side’s listing page email us info@tosmag.co.uk To be featured as one of the 7 stops contact jacques@tosmag.co.uk.

Anybody can upload their event to our brand new listings page www.theothersidemag.co.uk/map

MUsIc

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ONDON ALLING

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF YOUNg & LOsT cLUb sara and Nadia are both halves of Young and Lost club, London’s label of the moment. Young and Lost roster such bands as golden silvers, The virgins and the soon to be camden heartthrob Othello Woolf, they also put on right good parties. If time, money and tiredness didn’t come into it, how do you spend the perfect day in this fine city?

“Wake Up at 10am! We both love a lie in when we can.” Nadia is often awakened by her cat Kajumba licking her face. “by 11am we tend to have made it out for a big breakfast at the conservatory in The Wallace collection Museum in Manchester square. It’s a lovely conservatory and is quite tucked away so you can always get a table.” sarah

I like London a lot. I enjoy waking up on a Sunday morning and wandering down to the unimpressive Holloway Road car boot sale where you can buy past-their-sell-by-date toiletries, giant non genetically modified Ghanaian avocados and have a Thai massage. I enjoy breakfast in Banners…anytime, anyday. I enjoy playing darts in the old man pub next door to my flat. I know what I like, but what about the rest of London? I thought about exploring it and then I thought… nah

interrupts, “The croissants are amazing! breakfast is my favourite meal of the day!”

The girls are very fortunate to live near Regent’s Park. And being their favourite park in London what better way to spend late morning than feeding the ducks on yesterday’s bread and any leftover croissants from breakfast.

1pm – “We love heading West to The gate cinema in Notting Hill.”

According to London folklore The gate is the only cinema left in London that makes the popcorn fresh! Food (salty popcorn in particular) is very important in the Y&L world!

“Our favourite film this year has been The september Issue. A documentary about Us vogue working on the september Issue of the magazine. It was really interesting to get a behind the

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the other side | december 2009

scenes view on the magazine industry. Anna Wintour (Us vogue’s Editor in chief) is a big hero to sara and I!” After the film it’s back to home to feed the cat who sounds like she gets remarkably spoilt. “Fresh fish for dinner!”

5pm – “It’s off to soho for cocktails and dinner at bob bob Ricard. A 20’s looking restaurant with what we think are the best cocktails in London. bob’s is open until 2am and do a mean pancake.”

8pm – “After more food it’s time for a night out. The Old Queens Head in Angel is where we host our Y&L Dj night. We book bands from the label and friends to come down and do a party set. It’s always really busy and everyone ends up dancing there.”

2am – taxi home after a great day!

MUsIc

PLANET EARTH

have been spotted sharing stages with Laura Marling, soko, Peter and the Wolf (the Texan version) and Johnny Flynn. In Autumn 2008 they supported Noah and the Whale on their UK tour. In March 2009 their first single, ‘bergman Movies’, was released on the Young and Lost club. They’ve even got a blog! so how do they spend their ideal day in London town?

food courtesy of the extremely zenerous Krishna folk. There is such a thing as a free lunch.

Road for some awesome southeast Asian food at the bintang.

And it’s bring your own.

3pm – stop by the beautiful gordon square gardens, once home to E.M. Forster and virginia Woolf.

8pm - Where better to while away your evening that at a sammy smith’s pub? The Fitzroy near Tottenham court Road is a particular favourite.

4pm – Head back south for an afternoon hot chocolate on Old compton street.

10 am – where better to start your day than with an early coffee at Monmouth, tucked away behind borough Market. Mmm, perfect for a brisk winter’s day!

11am – stroll down to the southbank. From borough Market you can walk west along the river, past the Tate Modern and coin street to the southbank, one of our favourite parts of the city.

Maybe stop and browse the second hand book stalls under Waterloo bridge?

12.30pm – From Embankment it’s a short walk to the Mall and st James’ Park, where you can admire the swans (TOs will tell you that it’s treason to kill a swan and one of the only remaining crimes you can still be hanged for in England), or have a wander through the lovely IcA gallery.

1pm – a short walk up to Leicester square, where you can watch an early bird movie at the Prince charles cinema for only £1.50. bargain!

2.30pm – catch the tube up to Russell square, walk to outside sOAs and get some delicious free

From here you can do some all important record shopping too, at sister Ray or the soul Jazz shop.

Or you can enjoy the local shops, like the authentic Italian food at I camisa. If you are feeling daring, browse the sex shops. It’s up to you.

6pm – It’s time for more food.

Head north to the Kentish Town

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the other side | december 2009

10pm – If you fancy some further boogying, the Night slugs funky and grime nights are always fun.

A DAY OUT WITH sUNDERbANs

some of these at the Zoo.

10.00: start the day at Mess café on Amhurst Road. Here American diner meets English greasy spoon, served by Turkish wives. Order a full English with chunky fried potatoes or a sweet maple-syrupsoaked American breakfast with hash browns and ham.

13.45: After your healthy dose of the weird and the wonderful take the bus back to camden Road Overground station and ride the train to Hampstead Heath. being raised above the city, this stretch of the journey casts a wonderful panoramic view.

10.30: Once done, visit the pet shop next door to prepare for the day ahead. Meet the kittens, snakes, lizards, parrots, siamese fighting fish…the list goes on.

14.15 Hampstead Heath is vast and beautiful and makes London the best city in the world. You’ll feel free from the smog and squalor of the city despite being circled by it!

It’s an urban oasis. Have a picnic. sleep in the reeds. Run between the trees. climb inside the Magic tree.

Play hide and seek. To freshen off dive into the ponds, meander the ducks and flirt with the moor hens. (n.b. nutters, lifeguards break the ice in the winter so you can swim all year round).

10.45: cross the road to Hackney central station and get the train above ground to camden Road and then the 274 to London Zoo. 11.15: sunderbans is an Indian National Park so London Zoo is our closest alternative. The network of tributaries is home to the bengal Tiger as well as an array of other species. The Estuarine crocodile, Fishing cat, common Otter, Water Monitor lizard, gangetic Dolphin, snubfin Dolphin, River Terrapin, green sea Turtle, King cobra, Wild boar, spotted Deer and Porcupine. Keep a look out for

17.30: bar 23 opposite barden‘s boudoir on stoke Newington Road. This hidden gem sits beside our practice room and is our favourite bar in London. You’ll feel like you’re on a Mediterranean holiday as soon as you walk in. Even better, it’s open till the early hours.

We’ll be hosting the sunderbans christmas Party here on saturday 19h December.

19.30: Next door is a Turkish Restaurant called Tava. Don’t let appearances deceive, the food here’s amazing - fresh and wholesome. Everything is good, but try the daily stew with rice, bread and strange pickles that look like pieces of brain for a fiver. This will fill two people, especially if you start with Lamachun.

21.00: When the sun is set walk back to where we began, through Hackney Downs to The Pembury Tavern on Amhurst Road.

Aesthetically it’s a mix between a methodist church and a youth club. Warhammer enthusiasts with pointy beards serve strange stouts and really cheap, good food.

Rack up the billiards table and get medievally pissed.

1.00: stumble back to our flat for wrestling matches and table jumping to Pulp and Eels.

Hear more about new music @ www.theothersidemag.co.uk

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what’s on

NYE Too many options, not enough cash and short on time to research a night out? Don’t worry, we’ve done it for you, and our smart ideas won’t break the bank by chloe george

For a tropical taste

For some soul

For a fair old Scottish jig

Shoreditch’s gorgeous Rich Mix arts centre presents Arriba La Cumbia on December 31st, a night of ‘pysch, peruvian, samba, tropical, latin, afro, cumbiaaaaa, ghettotastic beats and shenanigans’.

Bands include Eri Okan, a north-eastern Brazil samba and bloco outfit (huge drums and rhythms, like a full on carnival party) and DJ sets from Movimentos and Hackney Globetrotter, who’ve played at Lovebox, Bestival, Glastonbury, Womad, Cargo and all across the world.

Promising a cosmopolitan and friendly crowd, this is a great option if you’re east-side and don’t fancy being shafted on London’s premier rip-off night – early bird tickets are £15.

The newly opened Blues Kitchen in Camden offers baby-blue gingham walls, a resident allfemale R&B band called Pushing Pussy and 40 different types of Bourbon.

You can also get tasty southern style food – gumbo, BBQ chicken, pancakes and Mississippi mud pie, amongst others. Columbo, the team behind a plethora of successful venues including Essex Road’s Old Queen’s Head and Paradise By Way Of Kensal Rise, have received a lot of press attention and even a visit from celebrity airhead Peaches Geldof to kick off their new venue in style...sort of.

NYE will have some old fashioned R&B, northern soul, 60s soul and rockabilly on hand for an affordable, central party.

Beautiful Shoreditch Town Hall hosts a ceilidh this Hogmanay, with a live band and snacks at the bar. Tickets are a little pricey at £42, and this could be seen as a cheeky NYE cash-in, but who cares if it’s proper fun?

www.richmix.org.uk

www.theblueskitchen.com

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www.thebigceilidh.com

For in da club

As far as clubbing goes, Cargo’s air-conditioned, non-pretentious, under-the-arches experience is up there with London’s finest. Only a few venues could boast a quality of service across the spectrum, from chilled out brunches to post-work cocktails to delicious dishes like Goan Fish curry, ending up with a party late into the night. Never too packed out, surrounded by excellent bars and small and perfectly formed, this

is as comfortable as clubbing gets.

Aside from superclubs like Matter and Ministry of Sound, NYE offers a night of unrivalled music – the New York-based stars DFA , the achingly hip duo from Brooklyn, Holy Ghost, and the uber urban cool Horse Meat Disco in a specially fitted out room.

For nice, cheap, fantastic

For anyone who hasn’t noticed that the past is the new present, the Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes provide a retro bowling/dancing/drinking experience all under one roof. NYE offers two floors of entertainment including live bands, DJ’s, 13 bowling lanes, 3 bars, 4 karaoke rooms, a hot tub and a cinema.

We probably don’t need to tell you how to throw a good house party, but we will anyway. Follow the golden rule – pick a theme, and stick with it. A 90s nostalgia night requires some Shed Seven on your Spotify playlist, a Ben Sherman shirt and a game of spin the bottle. Club Tropicana needs some dreadful 80s pop, smuttilytitled cocktails and a lot of fake tan. 50s inspired evenings need a soulful soundtrack, a vintage dress and cheese and pineapple on sticks. To make a party a little more interesting, you can hire a cocktail waiter to mix your drinks for you. You buy your own alcohol and shared out between enough guests, the price works out very reasonably. A pile of discount 5th November fireworks and Bob’s your uncle.

Tickets are £25.

www.hirethebarman.co.uk

£30 if you get an early bird ticket, £35 advanced. www.cargo-london.com

For a rootin’ tootin’ time

www.bloomsburybowling.com

30th, leaving you to collapse onto your sofas the next night with some lovely bubbly, food and friends to welcome in grey old January. Be sure to print off an invite before you head down and get there early, as queues go que-razy after 10pm. www.buttoneddowndisco.com

For doing the right thing

Sickened by the commercialism, consumerism and Richard Curtis reruns? Crisis Christmas takes on 8,000 volunteers every year in their ‘Christmas centres’ where homeless people can do all the things we do without thinking about it – get a wash, a hot meal and some companionship. The logistical and altruistic force behind the event coordinating, vehicle driving and hair washing that goes on over the Christmas period in Crisis’s 23 temporary centres has to be seen to be believed. Volunteer now, and change someone’s life.

For flicking the vees For something staggering

La Clique, the globally acclaimed, award-winning show on at The Roundhouse for three months, is described as ‘an ever-changing collection of the most outrageous, hilarious, beautiful and downright bizarre acts you will ever see’.

December 31st’s two hour performance starts at 9pm, in time for a stupendous midnight climax.

Be warned, it ain’t a cheap night out though – tickets are elevated for the night at £65-£75 – but it will most probably blow your mind. It only comes around once a year right? www.roundhouse.org.uk

www.crisis.org.uk

For any non-believers, Buttoned Down Disco’s F*ck NYE party at Koko in Camden on the 30th December (see what they did there?) is a right old rollicking night. Instead of venturing out on the public transport system with thousands of other chumps, trying pathetically to hail an overpriced taxi back to Ealing Broadway in the early hours of 2010 and paying double for drinks at opportunistic club nights, why not go out the night before? BDD plays electro indie pop hits to an inclusive young crowd, with giant balloons, badges and good drinks deals early on. Get your boozing done on the

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the other side | december 2009

For exercising vocal chords

Some things look more fun than they actually are, like ice-skating or Boris Johnson. This works beautifully in reverse with karaoke, which is about ten times more fun than it looks. After a few drinks your rendition of Nilsson’s ‘Without You’ will resemble Mariah Carey’s cover, in your ears at least. The fantastic Lucky Voice (Soho and Islington) provides you with your own stylish karaoke booth and drinks delivered to you. www.luckyvoice.com

FILMs

now showing

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bOYs FROM THE bOOsH TAKE A ROAD TRIP. IT’s WITHNAIL & I FOR THE MENTALLY ILL

he first feature by Mighty boosh director Paul King is as surreal, offbeat and inspired as you would hope.

Where the progressive series of the boosh alienated all but the faithful followers, bunny and the bull never serves up kook for kook’s sake. This is largely thanks to the sweet-hearted story at its centre. stephen ‘bull’ Turnbull (Edward Hogg) hasn’t left his house in months, since a disastrous trip around Europe with his troublemaking best friend bunny (simon Farnaby) that was supposed to help him mend a broken heart. stephen re-lives the journey through his extraordinary collection of carefully catalogued ephemera,

creating a psychedelic landscape of snapshots and souvenirs, mixing live action and animation as is its wont. but bunny’s idea of a drunken good time proved at odds with stephen’s fastidious nature and penchant for cutlery museums.

Picking up a charmingly superstitious spanish waitress Eloisa (verónica Echeguien) en “KING MAINTAINS A WINNING HUMOUR THROUGHOUT, UNDERSCORING THE RICH VISUALS” route, a typical romantic triangle drives a wedge between the friends.

Taking the cinematic trope of introvert geek who struggles

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the other side | december 2009

by adam richmond

with women paired with an over confident, funny friend who has all the answers, King applies not only a unique vision for the story – handcrafted backdrops like a fairground made from clock parts and a bull made out of cutlery – but maintains a winning humour throughout, underscoring the rich visuals and sense of impending doom.

While the opening scenes in the flat evoke Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Delicatessen (all browns and intricate detail dotting the frame), the colourful landscape of stephen’s mind – paper buildings, model cars weave through child-like hills – call to mind Michel gondry and in particular Science of Sleep.

“...it manages to be both anarchic and touching ” The care and attention that packs the screen is utterly winning and in a world where Danny Dyer lazily churns out gangster/ hooligan trash it’s also bloody inspiring. Boosh leading lights Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding also pop up – as a terrifying dogloving tramp and a booze sodden ex-matador respectively.

While Barratt excels with a decidedly intense and funny turn, Fielding can’t quite bring life to his one-joke role, he just looks like Noel Fielding doing a comedy Spanish accent. Badly.

It’s only misjudged moments like this that ever bring the film down to the narrow confines of King’s TV roots.

As close to greatness as it comes at times – and it does – as a whole it falls frustratingly short,

frustrating because visually it’s so inventive. The story lacks crucial depth and perspective, with some of the narrative jumps ill-explained and character motivations slightly hazy – Stephen’s agoraphobia, the centre point for the whole film, doesn’t quite ring true by the end and while it grasps at big themes – male friendship, love and grief – it doesn’t quite offer any new insights.

Despite these quibbles, the film is charming and always amiable.

Bunny and the Bull manages to be both anarchic and touching.

On this evidence (and if King is involved) the mooted Boosh film could actually prove a winner.

For more film reviews visit www.theothersidemag.co.uk

on the radar Where the Wild Things Are (dec) If you haven’t seen the trailer for this, you’re missing out.

This Spike Jonze-directed adaptation of the muchloved Maurice Sendak children’s novel looks uplifting and stunning.

Kick-ass (april) Matthew Vaughn, the man behind Layer Cake, put together this by himself.

Bypassing the studios he looks to have kept the bloody heart of this funny, post-modern and violent comic.

Green zone (june) Sold initially as a weighty and insightful drama exposing the rotten heart of the American occupation in Iraq, the trailer has sold it more as Bourne in a war zone.

Understandable as it stars Matt Damon and is directed Paul Greengrass, but hopefully this has a brain, not just explosions. green hornet (july) If you don’t want an action film directed by Michel Gondry you’re dead inside.

Don’t let the fact that it stars Seth Rogen put your off.

This has the potential to be very good.

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the other side | december 2009

FOOD

hOw TO EAT

DROP THE TURKEY, THE bRUssELs AND THE bIsTO. WE’vE HAD IT ALL WRONg OvER HERE FOR MANY A YEAR. WHO IN THEIR RIgHT MIND ENJOYs bREAD sAUcE ANYWAY?

ast year I spent christmas away from the bickering south London nonsense of my Uncle grey and rather with the would be in-laws in sicily. It was a lesson in eating, from the moment I sat down at midday until the moment I left the dinner table at gone midnight. Here’s what happens and here’s what we should probably do.

Nona’s house is filled with art deco furnishings, huge high ceilings, grandiose furniture, an abundance of trilby hats (something to do with the southern Italian roots methinks) and a table dressed with scores of plastic cups and plates. At first, confusion, but thinking about it makes perfect sense, although maybe not to greenpeace. No washing up! Nada.

Wine (Nero d’Avola) is poured and plates are filled with cold meats and baccala, which, in this household, is cubed and breadcrumbed monkfish, but more commonly salt cod. Olives and local bread are added to the fray. This is just a ‘while you wait’ feast before the main show gets into gear.

At about 1 o’clock the starter

L

is brought to the table and guess what, it’s lasagne.

Of course it is, delicious lasagne. You want to eat it all, but don’t, please don’t succumb to the temptation. It’s going to be a long day and let’s face it why waste good stomach space on pasta when it’s just the starter.

Take a deep breath and sink into your chair while you still can.

Fortunately there is a good half an hour between courses. Next out is a half metre bowl filled with giant sicilian sausages cooked in chilli and tomato sauce, served up with all kinds of veg, rosemary roasted potatoes, more bread and even more wine. Wipe your mouth and find a space in between six uncles on the sofa, there’s about one hour recuperation time. After a swift digestif and a schluff there’s an open invitation to return to the table, by now it’s about 5pm and however much you think you’ll crave The great Escape, chitty

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the other side | december 2009

chitty bang bang and a bailey’s, you actually don’t. The table is covered with cream filled goodness. cassatelle are sweet pastries from the nearby mountain town of Erice, filled

with a type of sweet ricotta cream and sprinkled with icing sugar and probably close to the most delicious thing ever.

‘Pass the Ace’ as I found myself referring to it is a game where you

don’t want to be left with the Ace at the end. You get one card, and can swap it with the person to your left without knowing what card they have. If they have a King, they

don’t have to swap and inevitably you are left with a lower card. For each round you lose, it’s one Euro in the pot, leaving a hefty amount for the winner. The game took my mind off the fact that I couldn’t move anymore and when greeted

by Roast beef stuffed with spinach and anchovies, it would have been rude to decline. In fact, it would have been foolish to decline, the joint of beef is cut so it can be laid out flat and then the spinach and anchovies are placed inside before the beef is rolled up and slow cooked in wine on the stove. It’s truly remarkable.

More cards, more wine and a third helping of beef later they bring out more cakes and more coffee, inevitably to help prepare you for what is still to come. Amazingly, it’s just a game of tombola or bingo as our grannies call it, amongst the whole family (again for money), more cake and then the backseat of the car home. The sleep that night is unbelievable, but what is really astonishing is the lack of Tv. christmas is a time for being amongst family and in some cases those you don’t get to see very often and in sicily that really is the case. The wine, the games and the food all lead to an unforgettable day. Like I said at the beginning, sod the turkey and the Queen’s speech, go to sicily.

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the other side | december 2009

LA gRAN LAsAgNE Olive oil Fresh lasagne sheets grated Parmesan 150g Ricotta cheese Four mozarella di bufala FOR THE sAUcE Two onions, chopped Tablespoon of sugar Four tins of plum tomatoes salt and pepper Fresh basil FOR THE MEATbALLs 250g minced beef 250g minced pork garlic Finely chopped parsley salt and pepper First of all make your tomato sauce, heat the oil and add the chopped onions and a tiny bit of sugar, gently cook until soft.

Add the tomatoes and season. simmer for 20 minutes.

To make the meatballs simply mix all the ingredients together and shape into balls. Dust with flour and lightly fry until golden on all sides.

Find a big dish and line it with half the tomato sauce.

Place a layer of the fresh pasta in the dish and spoon over some more sauce. sprinkle with some Parmesan and then put in the meatballs, some ricotta and the mozzarella. Repeat the process once more. Pour over the rest of the tomato sauce and cover with foil. bake for half an hour and serve to unsuspecting family members as a starter on christmas day!

Learn to cook with Sam @ www.theothersidemag.co.uk

short story

by

sara

mccorquodale

untitled (no.12)

F

emmes! Femmes! Femmes! ‘Allo mademoiselle, monsieur, vous voudrais entre?

Non? D’accord, bonsoir.

Paris in January was just as miserable as any other place in the first month of the year, except it felt worse because I expected it to fix things.

So did you.

Admit it.

The streets were coated with a rain and snow slippy slime.

You insisted we were having a good time.

I agreed because I wasn’t in the habit of admitting to being miserable anymore.

I didn’t have the clothes for this cold

and we didn’t have enough money to be inside any place except our hotel room.

It gave me nightmares and made us feel groggy.

The picture of the woman on the wall made me nervous.

So we wondered through the streets of Montmartre, down the Champs Elysees and visited the Eiffel Tower.

It was the only thing that made sense.

We bought wine that verged on vinegar and drank it in a huddle.

Did you hold on tight because you knew it was ending?

We didn’t speak to each other with the same obsession anymore.

I had been wrapped up in you for a year.

Maybe that’s why I froze in that city.

If you can’t make it work in Paris, you’re fucked and that’s the truth.

My trousers were too long and soaked in the slimy soup.

My vest and jacket did little to hold in the warmth.

I didn’t have socks, just shoes.

I’d packed in a flurry and left wanting to miss the flight.

Something warned me this trip was a bad idea.

Sitting in a cinema with no subtitles confirmed that.

Lucky old bilingual you.

28

the other side | december 2009

OFFSIDE

world cup willies

Can England win the World Cup? the general consensus is a resounding “No”.

But why? This is England – the birthplace of football, We have international ambassadors that include such legends as Shearer, Seaman, Lineker, Hoddle, Barnes, Ardiles, Beardsley, Shilton and Carlos Edwards... adly, we also have the FA. If they ever make “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People 2” (and we all pray that they don’t) then the chairman, Lord Triesman, is a shoo-in for a starring role. Winning the bid means winning over FIFA’s various Vice-Presidents, so you’d have thought the best place to start was Englishman Geoff Thompson, a former FA chairman himself. Reportedly Triesman still hadn’t called him nearly two years after getting the job, although maybe he didn’t have any free minutes left.

Of course, certain VicePresidents (or should that be Vices-President?) are never going to be convinced. Despite suggesting that England’s bid needed a bit of glam, the sort of glam that, say, a free bag might provide, CONCACAF President Jack Warner recently returned a free Mulberry handbag given as a gift to his wife after a storm of negative publicity. OK, more like a mild shower than your actual storm, but you get the picture.

“This malaise of my wife and I has been allowed to fester for too long, much to our embarrassment,” wrote Warner in a letter to Triesman (referring to the bag incident rather than

S

commenting on his marriage in general) before going on to add that “there is nothing that your FA can offer me to get my vote”, which rather scuppers the FA’s plans for a private Jedward gig in his honour.

The bid team’s response to mounting criticism was a “streamlining” of the board, although disappointingly this didn’t mean Lord Triesman pushing reps in the gym, just a reshuffle. Out went the dead wood leaving only the big hitters behind – people like Premier League Chairman Dave Richards (who then resigned anyway), Football League Chairman Brian Mawhinney, 2012 Olympic bid mastermind and really fast runner Seb Coe...oh, and FIFA Vice-President and Executive Committee member Geoff Thompson (but only after Lord Coe took him out for a nice meal at Pizza Express). There’s also an advisory group led by Karren Brady which just happens to “ONLY AFTER LORD COE TOOK HIM OUT FOR A NICE MEAL AT PIZZA EXPRESS” contain all that dead wood.

The FA has until 14 May 2010 to deliver their “Bid Book” to FIFA, which will contain proposals for

30

the other side | december 2009

stadiums, training venues, base camps and Fan Parks and some little stick men drawings by Romeo Beckham, before they finally reveal in December 2010 that we lost out to a nation whose football team is nicknamed the “Socceroos”. It would be fantastic to see the Wold Cup come to England again, but the way we’re going we’ll be lucky even to get the Pro-Evo one.

All I want for Xmas is…

It’s become traditional here at TOSOS to ask people for an assessment of their team’s performance so far this year. Last year we trawled the depths of football forums across London (and some of them are pretty low…) to bring you reports from across the Football League. But that was then, and this is now, and now means Twitter…and through this magical medium we bring you not one but two (count them) celebrity footy fans. Amaze your friends with your intimate knowledge of former Soccer AM presenter and Channel Bee impresario Tim Lovejoy’s stocking filler wish. Lean over and whisper “Awooga” in someone’s ear as you discover what former athlete Kriss Akabusi thinks about West Ham’s season...

ThE OFFSIDE

q+A

ED, ARsENAL

KRIss AKAbUsI, WEsT HAM

Outside the first EXPEcT TO FINIsH Third if we carry twelve but safe on like this.

Tom vermaelen, bEsT PLAYER He plays at centre gianfranco Zola THIs sEAsON back, he want to play attack…

sAM, sPURs

sixth

TIM LOvEJOY, cHELsEA

Top

Modric.

Drogba – Until he got injured immense corluka looks like he needs a kick up the backside

WORsT PLAYER THIs sEAsON

Diaby needs to start fulfilling his potential

Dean Ashton

ALL I WANT FOR cHRIsTMAs Is...

cover at centre half

3 points against Nilmar…and an chelski.... simples! electric toothbrush A hover board

Tos WanTs you Join our website and get involved with blogging and creating for us. get social by following us on Twitter and Facebook. And most importantly of all, prove that print is well and truly alive by taking out a subscription.

gael Kakuta

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