The Transmitter Issue 39

A SOUTH EAST LONDON MAGAZINE www.thetransmitter.co.uk

ISSUE 39

SPRING 2016

Man Down

And now a little piece of us has gone and the hole is letting in the cold air.

Editor Andy Pontin Sub-Editor Annette Prosser Designer Simon Sharville Photographers James Balston, John Barrett, Paul Grace, Susanne Hakuba, Peter Hope, Jessica Swan Contributors Justine Crow, Mike Fairbrass, Louise Heywood, Jonathan Main, Howard Male, Melanie Reeve, Sue Williams Printed by Cantate Communications Published by Transmission Publications, PO Box 53556, London SE19 2TL, thetransmitter.co.uk info@thetransmitter.co.uk @thetransmitter

21 Disclaimer The views expressed by contributors are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect this magazine’s editorial policy or the views of any employee of Transmission Publications. So there.

Transmitter 39

It's

been a little while now. The immediate cultural shockwaves and hoo-ha have died away along with the flowers at the impromptu shrine in Brixton, but for many of us who have been hanging around on this planet for a while there remains a little hole in the fabric of our lives that is letting in some cold air. Is the world a worse place now? Of course not, that's just stupid. It just feels like it. Why the fuck did we even care about that egotistic chancer from South London anyway? That dandified charlatan who left us all behind and went off gallivanting around the world partying with rock stars and supermodels while we were stuck in our little English hovels enduring our pointless existences with just a few of his records and videos to distract us from the meaningless horror of it all. But that was it, wasn't it? Those records and videos.His consistently brilliant output, particularly through the 70s and 80s, infiltrated our inner cores and became a part of who we were, who we are. Ever since Rock and Roll first spread its unstoppable teenage wildfire across America and Europe there have been a few times when western 'pop' music actually seemed important, and during most of those times David Bowie was releasing an album that knocked your socks off.

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News & Events

Trading Places

FESTIVAL NEWS 1

CHURCH RD CHANGES

Er, mostly festivals

It’s a shame Westow Park won’t undergo its amazing transformation in 2016. But organisers are already working hard to take next year’s event to the next level. Three more trustees are required: you, maybe?

Skills in strategic planning, business development, fundraising and large event management are all needed to ensure the festival’s future. Interested?

Email info@crystalpalacefestival.org with your CV and let them know. crystalpalacefestival.org

FESTIVAL NEWS 2

Just when you thought you’d have nothing to DO this summer in SE19, think again my friend. Following on from the great success of November’s SE Art Trail, this year two events will be taking place. The first is SE Art Trail in the Park on 4 & 5 June: a weekend celebration of community and creativity with exhibitions, workshops, performances and a market place in Crystal Palace Park.

Hurrah! Creatives, musicians and makers from SE19, SE20, SE25 and SE27 are taking part (to be involved get in touch before the end of April). Diarise it now, people! searttrail@gmail.com facebook.com/SEArtTrail @SEArtTrail

FESTIVAL NEWS 3

The Sydenham Spring Festival of Music (9-17 April) includes acclaimed singer-songwriter Kathryn Williams, whose music has been described as ‘ravishing’: check out album Hypoxia, a response to the works of Sylvia Plath. We also like the sound of Secret Opera’s Madame Butterfly (9 April) and its twin Monsieur Butterfly (13 April) which continues gender-challenging work they first explored with CarMen in 2013. sydenhamarts.co.uk @sydartsfest

STOP PRESS

Go absorb the cool creative talent on display on Friday 10 June 6-9pm and 11 & 12 June 11am-5pm as Coopers Yard (off Westow Hill) throws open its doors for another open studio. Imagination, innovation and intoxicating liquor all in one place.

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Bienvenue aux newbies

Local estate agents should create a name for the corner where Westow Street meets Church Road: White Hart Junction perhaps? It’s quite a hub. Brown & Green are somehow managing to feed and water all the mums, babes and toddlers in the entire vicinity; Tellia’s Deli just next door is a great one-stop shop for fruit & veg (& more) when a trip to the supermarket doesn’t appeal; Fancy Moon Fabrics (see page 6) are providing some new vibrant colour and it’s welcome back to Studio Interiors who are ensuring our soft furnishings are up to scratch.

For those disappointed that Crystal Palace’s Shop in the Pub is no more, fear not; the tiny space will still be used in typical SE19 style. Not only is the White Hart a great pub, it will now have its very own Milliner-inResidence, Dawn Wilson. Cool, eh? Vintagehart does live on, as those pretty toddler dresses are available to buy either at the Handmade Palace stall at the Saturday food market or at online makers’ platform Etsy. thewhitehartse19.co.uk brownandgreencafe.com dawnwilsonmillinery.co.uk etsy.com/shop/VintagehartLondon

MAISON D’ETRE

Fans of The French House in Lordship Lane will be tres heureux to entendre that a new branch will be appearing shortly ici in Palais de Cristal. Ok that’s enough of that. But this new caff will be, well, less caff, and more café continental bringing trad and contemporary French cuisine to Westow Hill, along with some playlists hitherto rarely heard in our many and varied eating establishments. Opening in April, customers will be able to enjoy a charming and relaxed ambiance created in no small part thanks to Yé-Yé, a style of chanson from the Sixties – music which exudes a mood all of its own. Think Brigitte Bardot, think icecream coloured capri pants, think carefree happy hours spent in a daze of Gauloises and Gainsbourg.

A ‘simple and unpretentious menu’, using fresh ingredients sourced from small French producers, will provide daytime fare including French patisserie, cakes and bread. The all-important coffee will be provided

by Square Mile Roasters. When darkness falls, café becomes restaurant and bar: and don’t be surprised to find yourself enjoying the acoustic delights of a real-life chanteuse as you sip your aperitif.

The French House 72 Westow Hill Crystal Palace London SE19 1SB thefrenchhouse.co

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SEW BRILLIANT

With the recent renaissance of home crafting, thanks to the likes of the Great British Sewing Bee on telly and a growing number of YouTube tutorials and blogs extolling its virtues (both practical and therapeutic) it was about time SE19 got its own fancy fabric shop.

And lo, it came to pass.

Fancy Moon Fabrics, selling online since 2010, is bucking the trend and has opened up a real life bricks and mortar premises, giving you creative bods the chance to browse their collection of quality cotton prints in the flesh.

Erstwhile-maker herself, previously selling at Portobello market, Nancy Shelton Jaffray started importing materials from the USA and Japan in the mid-Noughties, frustrated at not finding what she wanted here on home turf. Amongst the many brands she now stocks in her Crystal Palace shop are Alexander Henry and Michael Miller, and the range of bolts on show runs the gamut from beautiful pastel florals to striking Day of the Dead designs.

But budding dressmakers, hold on tight because there’s more. Cast your eyes beyond the colourful

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loveliness of Fat Quarters (for quilters), yarns (yes, Rowan and Debbie Bliss are both there) and haberdashery (Merchant & Mills anyone?) and you will see Janome sewing machines and empty, pristinewhite work surfaces await. And, breathe. Yes folks, no more fighting for a corner of the kitchen table, here you can sign up to a class and make your own frock under tuition AND, get this, you can even hire a machine (plus associated necessities including cutting table and ironing board) for just £6 per hour. This is a genius idea.

There’s loads to see on their website, including all information about upcoming classes. Knitters, watch out for advanced sessions with former John Lewis and Liberty experts, and the fabulous freehand fashion guru Chinelo Bally from the GBSB is also booked in for workshops in May and June.

Fancy Moon Fabrics 85 Church Road London SE19 2TA fancymoon.co.uk

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DAVID BOWIE 1947 - 2016 Howard Male's appreciation of a London boy

who played his cards very close to his chest

owie’s death in January was as much a blow to me as the death of a friend or relative. This may strike you as ridiculous so I’ll try to explain. From the age of 14, as soon as I shut my bedroom door against my often arguing parents, the Starman himself could be made manifest through my cheap Woolworths headphones. I would switch my record deck on and the bedroom light off, and get lost in a world of post-apocalyptic sexual deviance, intriguing off-kilter melodies and multi-layered sonic unpredictability.

David Bowie got up to the same kind of thing in his own bedroom, once upon a time. That is, he tried to escape the claustrophobia of suburbia through his record collection and books. In a 1990 interview he said of his Bromley childhood: ‘ I spent so much time in my bedroom. It really was my entire world. I had books up there, my music up there, my record player. Going from my world upstairs out onto the street, I had to pass through this no-man’s-land of the living room, you know, and out the front hall.’

Between 1972 and 1980, a new Bowie LP was the event of the year, helping me through periods of bullying at school, exam nerves and chronic shyness.

Cuddling up to my first girlfriend, the cosy folk ballad An Occasional Dream enabled my first romantic kiss.

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When I went off to art school in 1979, Bowie had just gone through his own artiest period working with Brian Eno on the Berlin trilogy. So his experimental approach to song construction became a more significant influence on my development as an artist and thinker than anything the bloodshot-eyed tutors had to say when they weren’t down at the White Swan.

Most reminiscences that have come in the wake of Bowie’s death have focused on his homoerotic performance of Starman with Mick Ronson on Top of the Pops in 1972 (often misremembered as being in colour as the vast majority of TV sets were still black and white). Then these commentators went on to talk of how the song Heroes indirectly led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, before concluding with an appreciation of the most extraordinary comeback in the history of show business when DB sprang a new album on us after a decade in which rumours of his serious ill health were rife.

But let’s skip all that and focus on Bowie as one of South London’s finest. This isn’t as easy as you might think. David Robert Jones’s childhood and early adulthood in Bromley, Brixton and Beckenham was rarely a direct inspiration for his lyrics. And the few songs that do mention London don’t paint the place in a favourable light. In fact 1968’s obscurity London

Bye Ta Ta seems to reflect a yearning to leave the city.

Its title was an overheard cry of a West Indian man to his relatives as his train pulled out of Victoria Station.

The London Boys of two years earlier is no more optimistic, telling the sordid tale of a teen leaving home and meeting his downfall amongst pill-popping mods in flashy clothes. The truth is, Bowie was always far more comfortable being a stranger in a strange land; a man who fell to Earth in China (China Girl), Mombasa (African Night Flight) Turkey (Yassassin), Kyoto, Cyprus and Russia (Move On) and of course America (Panic in Detroit, I’m Afraid of Americans and so on).

There would be the one gem of a song inspired by a 1969 summer fair at Croydon Road Recreation Ground.

Apparently Bowie (whose father had just died) was in a stinking mood on the day itself, and stormed out moaning about the poor PA system amongst other things. But why let reality get in the way of a moving idealistic hippy anthem? Memory of a Free Festival is a psychedelic Beatles-influenced epic, complete with Hey Jude-like singalong refrain at the end. From the same album (Space Oddity), God Knows I’m Good is the sorry tale of a little old lady who gets arrested for shoplifting. It’s easy to imagine that a Co-op in Penge was the location, particularly given that Bowie’s friend and producer Tony Visconti tells us in his autobiography

that Bowie coined the term ‘penge-uins’ to describe the people of Penge. Whether it was with affection or condescension isn’t recorded. But to be fair, it’s not unusual for ambitious artists to end up rejecting or even despising the environment they grew up in.

Decades pass before Bowie’s early London life gets mentioned in his work again. In 1993 he penned the title track for the BBC drama series The Buddha of Suburbia based on Hanif Kureishi’s novel of the same name. It’s an elegiac anthem that references several earlier songs – Space Oddity and All the Madmen are directly quoted, the former musically, the latter lyrically.

A further two decades would pass before we’d be given any suggestion that Bowie still reflected upon his South London past.

When I woke on the tenth of January 2013 to news of a new video and single from the great man, it was so unexpected I thought, as others did too, that it might be an elaborate hoax. At the end of the Where Are We Now? video, the camera zooms in on Bowie wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words Song of Norway.

This was the title of a stage musical that his first love, Hermione Farthingale, was performing in when she met dancer Stephen Reinhardt and broke our David’s heart. How strange to think that he was perhaps using the video to send a message to this woman who 11

inspired one of his most direct love songs, Letter to Hermione, back in 1971.

Then came the end game: two complex videos burdened down with symbolism and nods to previous personas and songs. Blackstar and Lazarus represent the great illusionist up to his old tricks one last time.

It was at the director Johan Renck’s suggestion that Bowie retreated into a wardrobe at the end of the doom-laden Lazarus video. Bowie apparently smiled and responded: ‘yeah, that will keep them all guessing, won't it?’ And hasn’t it just. That wardrobe could represent just about anything. The gloomiest fan and most morbid critic might see it as a vertical coffin he has retreated into. The opposite extreme might be to see it as the wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and that Heaven rather than Narnia lies beyond all the thick winter coats. And Bowie loved a bit of jokey wordplay, so it may even be him going back into the closet he came out of in the early 1970s. Yet it’s also just a closet.

For even when Bowie sung about a certain Major Tom, and other starmen and spaceboys, he has stated that they were only metaphors for the health or ill health of his own inner-space at the time; how connected or disconnected he felt to reality. And reality, it turned out, was something he valued above 12

everything else. He spent the last ten years of his life doing little more than sketching with charcoal and walking his daughter to school (according to his regular bass player Gail Ann Dorsey).

The final two songs on Blackstar – Dollar Days and I Can’t Give Everything Away – are full of dappled sunlight and colour yet also weighed down by great sadness and longing. Yes, there are all the usual playful obfuscations – the cut-ups that cut us off if we’re getting too close – but you can’t get much more direct than these heartbreaking lines from Dollar Days: If I never see the English evergreens I’m running to It’s nothing to me It’s nothing to see He couldn’t give everything away, but he gave us as much as any great artist ever gives us. The finer details, as well as the splendid arc of his whole mercurial oeuvre, will be picked apart by scholars and fans alike for decades to come.

I, I will be king, and you, you will be queen. The King is dead, long live the King.

It's No Game Silhouettes and shadows watch the revolution No more free steps to heaven Just walkie-talkie - heaven or hearth Just big heads and drums - full speed and pagan And it's no game I am barred from the event I really don't understand the situation So where's the moral People have their fingers broken To be insulted by these fascists it's so degrading And it's no game Documentaries on refugees, couples 'gainst the target Throw a rock against the road, and it breaks into pieces Draw the blinds on yesterday, and it's all so much scarier Put a bullet in my brain, and it makes all the papers And it's no game Children round the world, put camel shit on the walls They're making carpets on treadmills, or garbage sorting And it's no game

Something happened on the day he died Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried: (I'm a blackstar, I'm a starstar, I'm a blackstar) ​ I can't answer why (I'm not a gangster) But I can tell you how (I'm not a flamstar) We were born upside-down (I'm a starstar) Born the wrong way 'round (I'm not a white star, I'm a blackstar)

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Photos by James Balston jamesbalston.com

Last year saw auction house Roseberys London put a lot more than fine art & collectibles under the hammer as walls came down and new spaces were designed to create a better experience for buyers and sellers alike

STATE OF THE ART t's been an exciting 12 months for Roseberys.

As more and more of us are enjoying both the practicality and the excitement of the auction process – whether we’re looking to make money on long-kept treasures or searching for unusual items to add to our homes or collections – it was time to turn up the volume. But the new swish and spacious contemporary reception areas, the private valuation rooms, the development of one zone as a versatile exhibiting space (available to hire soon) and exterior facelift were only ever part of the plan.

Although telephone bidders have long been a part of the auction process, nowadays no sale would be complete without a live online bidding facility.

Roseberys’ refurb has included this along with a shiny new website. So, as long as you have internet connection on your PC, laptop or mobile phone, a live audio and video feed will allow you to view the auctioneer and listen to the bidding. Away from West Norwood on your annual trip to Mallorca or Morocco?

No probs, just whip out your tablet and get involved with RoseberysLive. To encourage bidders from still further afield (those unlucky enough not to live in South London) a new online-only auction platform – Vertu@Roseberys – had its first outing in October, with a specially curated selection of works by Modern British artists.

Along with the implementation of a new series of specialist stand-alone auctions, staff are particularly proud of their new exhibition project, Roseberys Introducing, which looks to lesser-known emerging and established creative talent in modern and contemporary art. Curated exhibitions showcase works the artists themselves are keen to bring to a wider audience. Keep your eyes peeled for these, they are sure to inspire.

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Roseberys London 70/76 Knights Hill London SE27 0JD roseberys.co.uk

Upcoming events Decorative Arts & Modern Design and Fine Art Auction 900+ lots from a range of disciplines 22 & 23 March (viewing from 18 March) Vertu@Roseberys : Best of British Online Auction An online-only auction, showcasing the very best of British talent, in celebration of the Queens 90th birthday From 29 April Roseberys Introducing & Dulwich Festival Artists Open House Exhibition A collaboration featuring work by 14 local artists 7, 8 and 14 May 19

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Photos by Paul Grace

paulgrace-eventphotos.co.uk

ROOTING FOR THE COMMUNITY Local garden designer Louise Yates has created an edible garden with a twist for Jules Hussey and her partner Sue Giovanni: nearly all its plants and flowers can be eaten from root

ommunity gardens: a phrase that conjures up public spaces and volunteer action to bring food and flowers to the locals. But it can mean more than this. Too often turned over to the all-important car parking space, or consisting solely of a tiny fig leaf of a lawn, a front garden can become a catalyst to bring people together and build community.

Having met for the first time on set filming BBC TV series Call the Midwife, Louise and Jules met again at the Crystal Palace Food Market and realised not only did they share a community, but also creativity and a love of plants. Their conversation on a market day in Antenna Café focused – naturally – on food and growing.

A design was planned which adhered to rules set

by The Dulwich Estate which state clearly how much garden has to be soft landscape. At 6x4m the garden is too wide to tend without some kind of path, so Louise designed a curved – almost oval – one in reclaimed granite setts which looks like a mini race track.

Quite fitting for owners of retired racing dogs and a motorbike! The path was skilfully built by Nick Williams (husband of Sue, regular Palace Patch contributor to The Transmitter) who also installed the little white fence (made from recycled plastic) and rebuilt the old front wall.

The garden is bordered by an edible hedge of red, white and black currants on one side and lavender around the other. A mixture of rosemary and the beauty bush Callicarpa bodinieri 'Profusion' runs across a low front wall; the purple berries of the Callicarpa are

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apparently edible but go easy on them. Use just a few on a cake perhaps or simply let the birds enjoy them.

In the centre is a living green mini mountain of cardoons (Cynara cardunculus) which, when in flower, give more little birds plenty to get stuck into with their giant thistle flowers. Around them are edible dahlias (bred by a company dedicated to edible plants) whose tubers once equalled the potato for keeping Andean folk fed. Varieties ‘Sunset’ and ‘Black Jack’ have massive star-burst semi-cactus blooms in yellow with orange tips or deep purples. Surrounding these are Agastache and roses, oregano and Hemerocallis, all with edible blooms. Skirting these are a number of different thyme plants and two kinds of wild strawberry, both of which will spread under the taller plants above. The alpine strawberries have been especially popular with children and birds alike! Added to this mix are some ornamental Allium (‘Purple Sensation’); the spiky leaves of Allium tuberosum (an edible white-flowered perennial member of the onion family); Hesperis matronalis (sweet rocket) and Tulbaghia violacea (another onion-like edible perennial plant). The small space is chock-a-block with purple and white with splashes of yellow.

Louise also used spring and autumn flowering bulbs to prolong the season of colour and to add interest when many herbs are dying down for winter. A few non-edible Crocosmia – red hot ‘Lucifer’ and sharp yellow ‘George Davison’ – were added to spice up the blues in summer time. After the plot was planted 23

in April, the Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ soon shot up, filling the garden with lovely globes of mauve: a feast for the bees. Then the herbs came up and the sweet rocket burst into life in purple and white. A little annual Purslane was added because of its high omega 3 content; it needs reseeding in the spring, but grows really fast and is great in salads.

On a street that takes many folk to and from the station at Gipsy Hill, a regular stream of passers-by stop to comment or thank Jules and Sue for making them smile on the way to work, often encouraging their small children to pick the strawberries, edible leaves or flowers. The blooms prompt loud shouts of ‘spectacular!’ as people run for the train and has made new neighbours stop and chat and feel welcome to pick fresh herbs whenever they are passing.

This is a community garden.

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Above Green print dress (£59.95) and Penelope teal cardigan (£55) both by Emily & Fin, Smash Bang Wallop Right Blue & white dress by Coster Copenhagen (£89), Smash Bang Wallop

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Above Beige smock (£34.95) by J&L, Backstage. Earrings (£114)

by Alex Monroe, Smash Bang Wallop Left Blossoming poppies dress by Emily & Fin (£65), Smash Bang Wallop

STOCKISTS: Smash Bang Wallop 40 Westow Street Crystal Palace LONDON SE19 3AH Backstage 47 Westow Street Crystal Palace LONDON SE19 3RW

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Synths & Sensibilities World Music snob Howard Male finds to his surprise that two new albums by Crystal Palace-based artists are really good hen The Transmitter editor asked me if I’d like to write about a couple of local music acts, my knee-jerk response was to say no. By all means accuse me of cultural snobbery or unjustified pessimism, but I simply didn’t want to have to widen the goalposts of my aesthetic standards in order to humour ‘local talent’ that wouldn’t measure up beyond the confines of cosy Crystal Palace. However, I owed it to these acts to at least give them a listen before deciding – just to make sure they were, at best, mediocre or, at worst, much worse.

Metamono rang a bell. Then I remembered I’d heard them perform at the Crystal Palace Festival and they weren’t in the slightest bit mediocre. In fact their take on what 1970s music journalists rather dubiously labelled Krautrock (a form of austere German rock centred on synthesisers) had both an air of authenticity and a freshness about it that made them intriguing.

But what of Sarah Williams White, the other artist Mr Ed had asked me to cover? I imagined a breathyvoiced singer-songwriter with a hand-painted ukulele and an album’s worth of limp heartfelt songs about the traumatic break up with her first proper boyfriend.

About once a month an album of this ilk drops through my letterbox accompanied by a press release claiming that I’m about to hear the next Joni Mitchell. So I brace myself before diving in. But hang on … what’s this?

The key is minor, the drums are agreeably bombastic, and yet the vocals have a contrastingly

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intimate jazzy quality reminiscent of one-time Tricky collaborator Martina Topley-Bird. This is clearly a musician who is actually deeply involved in creating the right sonic environment for her songs to flourish in. Another good sign is that the artists she later tells me are her influences (Kate Bush, Fiona Apple and Erykah Badu to name but three) are not apparent from listening to her debut album Of The New World. How does a young singer-songwriter growing up in a Gagadominated, Rihanna-ruined pop world end up sounding so uncompromisingly different while still retaining a pop sensibility? Having a mum who loves Motown and Stax and a dad into jazz and world music can’t have done her any harm.

But to return to that drum sound for a moment.

It was apparently achieved simply by recording the whole drum kit with a single microphone – a radically primitive approach in an age when it’s more usual to mic up every separate part of the kit and then spend a week trying to get the perfect sound. The man responsible for both the drumming and the recording is studio engineer Timmy Rickard. The songs were built up on Sarah’s laptop, with a focus on retaining an earthy edginess and lots of organic-sounds, and then Tim would play along to the end results. Sarah’s dislike of digital technology’s tendency to eviscerate music, removing its very soul and feel, is something she has in common with the aforementioned Metamono.

PHOTOS BY JESSICA SWAN

Of The New World by Sarah Williams White is available (vinyl £10, digital download £5) at sarahwilliamswhite.bandcamp.com, on iTunes & Spotify and at selected indie record shops.

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Metamono’s website makes it clear that band members Jono Podmore, Paul Conboy and Mark Hill are almost evangelical about their rejection of all music technology post 1980. They get their challenge and pleasure from limiting their options to analogue sound generators, cranky old synths and no overdubs. As Jono puts it: ‘digital audio is a minefield of nastiness’. I understand their avoidance of ghastly sterile modern keyboard sounds, and not wanting to quantise their beats within an inch of their lives, but these guys are even suspicious of stereo. This I don’t get. After all, the strategic placement of our two ears makes us humans purpose built to listen in stereo. So surely this is a retro-step too far?

But, hey, the proof is in the analogue pudding. And Metamono’s just-released second album Creative Listening (available from their website) has an agreeable physical presence and a solid, chunky bottomend which arguably doesn’t need to be distractingly, fussily mixed in stereo. It’s pleasure enough to hear the kind of electronic buzzes, bleeps and washes that, back 34

in 1974, seemed to sonically represent The Future so perfectly, yet now that The Future (1984, 1999, 2001 – all those notable sci-fi dates) has come and gone, seem to paradoxically have a deeply nostalgic quality about them. Metamono are clearly aware of this paradox and so make their music a more playful, less schematic take on what bands such as Kraftwerk and Can were doing back before The Future had happened.

Both Metamono’s Creative Listening and Sarah Williams White’s Of The New World demonstrate that a strict self-limiting aesthetic can bear fruit and delight ears that have long grown weary of the kind of overcompressed conveyor-belt pop of Simon Cowell’s X Factor factory and other purveyors of lowestcommon-denominator chart fodder.

PHOTOS BY PETER HOPE & JOHN BARRETT

METAMONO AND FRIENDS Anerley Town Hall, Anerley Road, SE20 8BD Friday 18 March 7.30pm-1.30am Crystal Palace Overground Festival presents Metamono in a fundraising concert. Also appearing are Raf and O, Sculpture, Brother G & The Trouble and Junkshop Disco Tickets £18.59

Creative Listening by Metamono is available (180g vinyl plus download) at metamono.co.uk (£20).

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Howard Male takes in Mali, Colombia and black America of the 1950s and 60s

while continuing his mourning process for the late, great David Bowie eedless to say, given my feelings expressed about David Bowie elsewhere in this issue, my favourite release so far of 2016 has been Blackstar (Sony Music) – his parting gift to us. It’s extraordinary enough that a dying man would spend much of the short time left to him in a recording studio. But what’s even more remarkable is just how good the end results are. Bowie was still pushing the envelope; in fact he’s inventing a whole new hybrid genre here. This isn’t jazz rock (God forbid!), it’s rock jazz. That is; rock music played by jazz musicians.

And what a bold and exhilarating joy it is. I had the pleasure of listening to it for a few days before the tragic and shocking news of the man’s death. What it then implied was a richly fertile period laying ahead – a late renaissance for this unstoppable innovator.

What it sadly turned out to be was, by turns, a spirited and deeply moving goodbye (I still can’t listen to the beautiful Dollar Days and I Can’t Give Everything Away without welling up). And what it may still end up being – once the dust has settled – is David Bowie’s most cohesive and therefore finest album.

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The Colombian band Sidestepper have been making great dance club music with a contemporary edge for more than a decade now. But they’ve risked alienating many of their fans on Supernatural Love (Real World Records). The bedrock of most dance music is the bassdrum and snare, both of which are largely absent or buried in the mix here. Instead, the fast-flowing grooves are carried by a complex mix of congas, shakers and other percussion overlaid with guitars, flutes and even jaunty whistling. What this effectively does is make for a more texturally rich listening experience with more focus on the melodies. There’s also a breezy Sixties psychedelia vibe, although this never descends into mere pastiche. Fresh and infectious, this is what one might call an intimate dance record.

Rokia Traoré is sometimes wrongly compared to Malian divas like Oumou Sangaré. This is a mistake because her musical intentions are quite different. There’s nothing showy or histrionic about Traoré, nor does she want to be perceived as an ambassador for Malian traditional styles (although these are generally woven into the eclectic mix). In fact some of the songs here are almost whispered – we are confided in rather than awed. Her arrangements support this aesthetic, being comparable to finely wrought minimalist etchings. At the centre is the full tone of her beloved semi-acoustic vintage Gretsch. The stand out track on Né So (Nonesuch Records) is a cover of Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit. It’s a bold move to tackle such a resonant classic by such a legendary artist but she just about pulls it off.

Finally, we come to an indispensable box set called From Sacred To Secular: A Soul Awakening (History of Soul Records). Why indispensible? Because these eight CDs featuring rare early recordings by Jimmy Scott, Little Richard and Ray Charles, among many others, contain the very DNA of every pop, soul, hip-hop and rock record that’s been made since these songs were recorded in the 1950s and 1960s in Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis, Harlem and Detroit.

Racially segregated and persecuted black musicians – who had grown weary of God because He never did anything about their plight – took the solid templates of gospel and spiritual music and used them to sing about the messier business of earthly passions. What’s most fascinating to hear is that the form hardly changed at all. There are still those same stirring gospel chords and call-and-response vocals that had their origins in Africa, but the shift from the spiritual to the sexual was seismic. The subject matter became the adored girl rather than the adored god, and she was being carried over to the bed rather than up to the heavens. And thus contemporary pop music was born.

Signed copies of Howard Male’s glam noir novel Etc Etc Amen can be purchased from The Bookseller Crow

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Teen Make-up mogen is 17 years old and works in Blackbird Bakery as well as studying for her A-Levels.

She wanted to learn how to apply eyeliner and also how to cover her spots avoiding the caked-infoundation look.

Imogen has really pretty feline eyes so I went for a Kate Moss-inspired rock chick eyeliner (which also suits Imogen's personal style), keeping it clean and simple so she can get away with wearing it to college too.

When doing eyeliner tilt your chin up and look down at the mirror. I used a gel eyeliner, with a thin angled brush, along her top lash line, making the line gradually thicker as I got towards the outer corner. The key to this look is to simply extend the top line – continuing at a slight upward angle, past the outer corner of the eye – and not to worry about ‘the flick’. I always like to keep the lower lash line a bit smudgy so I used a soft black eyeliner pencil on the outer corners (including the waterline). I then blended grey eyeshadow, with a short

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stubby brush, over the eyeliner and along the outer third of the lower lid.

The aim of foundation is not to cover blemishes but to simply even out skin tone. The majority of Imogen’s skin is really clear so I simply applied a thin layer of sheer illuminating foundation all over, then added some highlighter to the cheeks and top of the cheekbones to give the skin a glow.

To cover blemished skin really well you need two types of concealer and two sizes of brushes. Apply a creamy concealer to the spot in a criss-cross motion and then with a tiny pin-point brush target the spot with a dryer concealer (I used Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage). Set the concealer (so it lasts longer) by patting on powder with a powder puff and leave the rest of the face with little or no powder.

Imogen’s look was finished with a bright pinky/coral cream blusher and a pink tinted lip balm.

It’s all about simple eyeliner & glowing skin says beauty expert Louise Heywood

The Products Charlotte Tilbury Light Wonder Foundation in 1 Fair Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer in Ivory Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage in SC-1 Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Finish Powder in 1 Fair Bobbi Brown Long-wear Gel Eyeliner in Black Ink Bourjois Liner Stylo Pencil in Ultra Black Max Factor False Lash Effect Mascara Bobbi Brown Eyeshadow in Grey Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Brow Color in Medium Sleek Blush by 3 in Californ.I.A Rimmel Good To Glow Highlighter in Piccadilly Glow Burt’s Bees Tinted Lip Balm in Pink Blossom

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SUE WILLIAMS tells you everything you always

wanted to know about topiary but were afraid to ask

t's been a rum winter. On New Year's Day there were 600 species of British wild flower in full bloom. There were seven sightings of the Mayflower (aka Hawthorn) in bloom on the same day and the Agapanthus outside our back door is throwing up fresh stems and flowering. During my festive drive down the A1 on Christmas Eve I saw a whole slope of fully open daffodils.

Enough of these extraordinary horticultural happenings. Suffice it to say that it has been a warm and wet winter and the garden doesn't know if it's coming or going. It is not a terrific time for planting either as, certainly in my garden, the ground is too water logged.

So it seems a good time to put the garden into shape ... literally. I am a great fan of topiary. It lends form and structure to the garden throughout the whole year. The most unassuming of shrubs can become divas of the border if correctly handled.

Faint heart will not create dramatic forms though.

Sharp secateurs, an artistic eye and some under shrub chopping will be required. Take the viburnum tinus: this versatile plant can be found hidden away in almost every garden in the land. It is a very good do-er. There are white blooms in mid-winter, shiny berries to follow and a dark evergreen dense foliage.

But it is a bit boring if left to grow ungainly and unchecked.

But ‌ remove its lower leaves and branches to about three feet from the ground, shear its crown into

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semi-circle or UFO and the viburnum is transformed into a handsome focal feature. It responds well to fairly severe pruning, throwing up fresh leaves almost immediately.

Plants which have been topiaried into tree form command hefty prices at the garden centre but there are many other common shrubs which will respond enthusiastically to this topiaried trim whilst keeping the pounds in your pocket.

Laurus nobilis (aka bay) is a wonderful plant. It is evergreen, sends out a delicious scent when touched and can be used to perk up a stew. The bay is one of the more common subjects for topiary. Not only does it make a fine specimen tree, it also responds well to creating screening round the garden. I like to use it to create separate areas ... alright, rooms. Small bay plants can be close planted and gradually shaped as they grow. Removal of the lower stems and leaves will eventually form a raised evergreen block of green which can be underplanted with bulbs, annuals or in fact another layer of screening plants.

Mahonia is a very common sight in English gardens. So common in fact that it is sometimes unappreciated despite its handsome appearance. It has glossy spiny leaves that gather in clusters around strong upright stems. Very fragrant spikes of light yellow flowers open in the darkest months of winter and these are followed by shiny dark blue berries. But it is a large shrub when established and the beauty of its form can be lost if grown unchecked as its lower

branches tangle and loll about. In our marvellous community garden (next to the Albert) there stands a mahonia which has been splendidly topiaried so that it resembles a tall standard tree. It makes an impressive centre piece to the rear of the garden and is a good example of this method of pruning. Again the shrub is an ideal candidate for under planting.

A plant which will take a certain amount of pruning is the pittosporum. This New Zealand specimen has a rangy loose habit and can grow to full tree size over a few years. It does respond however to shaping and will form a close structural habit if sheared regularly. The leaves are wavy and tinged with pink and it is largely used for its foliage.

A slightly different type of pruning which creates dramatic effect can be carried out on the bamboo family. In recent years bamboo seems to have gained in popularity as an evergreen feature in the garden.

But it can look untidy and overwhelming if left to its own devices. A very striking look can be achieved by stripping all the canes of their leaves up to three or four feet from the ground. This is slow work and a bit boring to be honest. A bamboo has many, many leaves on thin little stems but the work is well worth it.

Phyllostachys nigra is, in my opinion, one of the best plants to grow. This bamboo has jet black canes and delicate green leaves. It looks exotic when these stems are exposed and is a tough hardy plant which thrives in our climate. Happy gardening

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SURPLUS SUPPER

Delicious leftovers and ingenious ideas abound in SE27 as Justine Crow discovers

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he Transmitter is always up for a bit of foodie adventure so when I informed my date – the bookseller – at which exclusive location we would be dining on behalf of our readership for the next issue, he wasn’t expecting a supermarket warehouse around the backside of West Norwood. But then, when I signed up with Grub Club and browsed their copious listings for all sorts of salivating events from pancake workshops to Alice in Wonderland dinners, Edible Perfume experiences to Armenian banquets, neither – it has to be said – was I. But exclusive was and is a key word, because the convenience store in question is the newly established Community Shop in SE27. Its recent opening caused a media squall, not least because the supermarket is exclusively available to those in receipt of some sort of government income support and who sign up to participate in projects designed to alleviate poverty and create positive prospects. The décor is decidedly un-supermarkety with hues of white and eau de nil and clean composite rubber flooring divulging just a hint of a sparkle. When we wandered along the pristine aisles, scrupulously arranged with familiar brands and staples such as tea and cereal at incredibly modest prices, the place certainly felt more like an elite club than a desperate last resort for those on their uppers.

So it seemed more than a little strange that we were actually here to indulge in a Surplus Supper.

Surplus, a definition: an excess of production or supply; more than what is needed or used.

Indeed, next to the shop, an open canteen was busy with cooks seasoning and tinkering at pans of perfectly good food that was otherwise destined for landfill. That word alone – landfill – succinctly characterises a society that is shockingly at ease with the notion of shoving its appalling excess out of sight.

I am famed for my greed but suddenly I am swallowing hard. Do I even need dinner, given that the place in which I am about to, er, fill up is dedicated to

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Photos by Susanne Hakuba susannehakuba.com

ensuring that others don’t go hungry? Precious tins of beans, vital bags of rice … while those of us fortunate enough to afford tickets for this sell-out occasion were contemplating a gourmet spread, I was having a problem reconciling the ingredients around me with what I was about to receive.

But the Brixton People’s Kitchen were on hand to set an encouraging tone as they served hors d’oeuvres such as potato & swede blinis, Bombay pesto & spiced carrots from their trademark ‘kitchen bicycle’. Their upbeat aim, without a trace of the maudlin, is to share food with strangers and, they say, if that food is saved from going to waste, it makes it taste even sweeter. It did.

Upstairs, guided by the additional aroma of fresh paint, we followed some purple T-shirts that declared Library of Things (more of that in a moment) into the unlikeliest-looking warehouse ever. Decked with white orchids and paper lanterns, tables adorned with silvery pussy willow and a quaint whitewashed market-style barrow laden with craft beer and wine for the evening, it looked as if the party had already begun without us.

We sat down with our bottles of Coldharbour Courage amidst a seemingly ready-made atmosphere of bonhomie but a whiteboard of fundraising auctions

for items like a tour of the Gipsy Hill Brewery belied a growing sense of purpose. It seems we weren’t here merely to gorge ourselves after all.

So let’s get the food out of the way first. Although the premise was leftovers, we knew our dinner wasn’t going to be bubble & squeak or dumpster lasagne, but it was still a surprise to discover quite how epicurean the dishes were. The starters were artichoke soup with parmesan crisp or smoked salmon, lobster tail & beetroot, both expertly presented, and next came tender chicken with mushrooms in garlic white wine sauce and a shallot tarte tatin with sage made with a decent pastry, accompanied by generous potato stacks and wilted spinach. It was all a delight to the palate, but how is it that this fabulous stuff had been destined for the tip? For all the appreciative noises, there was also much shaking of baffled heads. But even if the food we had eaten that evening had been rubbish – which it was, but not in a bad way – there was a more important story to be told.

It is the story of food waste, of over-production and near wanton supply. Clara of the Community Shop used the dinner party analogy: you don’t want your guests to go home hungry so you overcompensate.

It is this weird fear that somehow nothing is ever 43

enough that drives our cavalier attitude towards buying too much food and then simply chucking it away. As institutions, as individuals, we are all guilty of wanting it but then un-wanting it. The profits of the Community Shop, she explained, here and elsewhere – there are 15 across the country – go to increasing the organisation’s capacity to redistribute unwanted food. Make it wanted again. I suppose the irony is that if we all did as we should, the charity would not exist.

But it isn’t just food we thoughtlessly hoard then discard, as those people in the purple T-shirts stood up to explain. The concept of the Library of Things is possibly THE most sensible non-profit making creative idea for local re-use and recycling ever conceived: instead of a library of books that can be borrowed, how about a place where you can borrow a ladder or a sewing machine or food mixer? I mean, how many times a year does anybody actually need a strimmer?

Do you really own a mile-long Hampton Court-style privet maze, or what? And if you are on working benefits but without the spare cash for the tools, here’s somewhere you can lay your hands on that hammer to put up the single shelf up that’ll make life easier.

Crikey, I’d LOVE it if I could lend that blimmin’ car cycle rack in the hall that trips up the bookseller every time he walks past it. It’s only been there six years. And how about all those barely touched football boots in the coat cupboard? Small kids’ feet grow fast – surely we shouldn’t all be supplementing millionaire Mike Ashley’s income every time they go up a size?

Then there’s the Remakery near Camberwell, 44

‘sharing skills and sparking ideas’ for reducing waste by rescuing materials and offering space though membership to refurbish and reclaim. The ingenious Heath Robinson-esque Brixton People’s Kitchen bicycle downstairs that was responsible for those delicious blinis, was crafted by the clever bods at the Remakery.

The possibilities are, without doubt, endless.

And tonight, in clearing out their recently filled warehouse of stock and dust therefore releasing further opportunities for fundraising, the folk of the Community Shop show that you can effect change on your own doorstep. Dizzied and inspired by the potential all around us, diners are jumping up and adding their names to the auction board, swapping anecdotes and ideas with the verve of a frantic oldfashioned telephone exchange. Those who have cooked for us come out and take a bow to fervent well-earned applause. Their energy and innovation is infectious and the cry goes up: use your common sense and intercept waste before it hits the bin. And dessert is served. It is a salted caramel tart to make our senses trill, and I think it is safe to say that afterwards not a crumb of it was left for landfill.

For further information: grubclub.com community-shop.co.uk brixtonpk.wordpress.com libraryofthings.co.uk remakery.org westnorwoodfeast.com

The Brown & Green Supper Club has landed!

Come to Crystal Palace triangle to enjoy delicious menus from our fabulous guest chefs every Thursday evening. Email brownandgreen@outlook.com to book! www.brownandgreencafe.com

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In with the New Fancy a change? Melanie Reeve’s tips for the year ahead may inspire you to try something a little different …

SAMPLING

Sampling wine has never been easier. Enomatic technology is becoming increasingly popular with wine retailers, enabling a tasting measure to be dispensed whilst keeping the bottle in condition. Several locations in London offer a range of wines for sampling.

Top tip

Head along to The Wine Parlour in Brixton www. thewineparlour.com, The Sampler (South Kensington and Islington) or Vagabond wines (Charlotte Street, Spitalfields and Fulham)

ENGLISH WINES

The future is bright for English wine. We are making world-class sparkling wines which are serious enough to compete with champagnes, often using the same grape varieties. Make 2016 the year to sample our home-grown fizz and discover what all the fuss is about.

Top tip

Try Nyetimber (West Sussex), Chapel Down (Kent) or Ridgeview (Sussex)

REGIONS TO WATCH FOR WHITE Austria

Classic grape Gruner Veltliner produces a crisp, refreshing white wine with pear and peach fruit and a touch of spice

New Zealand

Pinot Gris is the rising star. A textured, rounded white with elegance and concentration

REGIONS TO WATCH FOR RED Australia

Wines made from Italian grape varieties (eg Sangiovese and Nebbiolo) are coming into the spotlight and worth seeking out

Portugal

It’s not just about port! Classic port grape varieties are used to make delicious red wines (these are often excellent value for money too) Melanie Reeve is a local wine educator and presenter Find her on Facebook: Wine Alive

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Jonathan Main

reads some books about journeys – geographical, emotional, creative – and finds lots to recommend

@BooksellerCrow lizabeth Strout has long been a shop favourite, her books near first off the top of the recommendation pile, and in My Name Is Lucy Barton (Viking Penguin £12.99) she offers up an unshowy masterclass in the art of storytelling. A woman, a writer named Lucy Barton, recounts a time one summer in the 1980s when as a younger woman she was hospitalised in Manhattan – the sun rising and falling on the Chrysler Building directly visible from her bed. When her mother, who she has estranged herself from and not seen for many years, pays a surprise visit to her bedside, Lucy is encouraged to narrate the journey she has taken. A journey from her dirt poor rural family background (at one point living in a garage, often locked for days at a time in the cab of her father’s truck) to her present life as a novelist in Manhattan (with money enough to have regular Botox treatments in an attempt, of course, to not look like her mother).

The telling of the story is bittersweet and not in the least sentimental, and anybody remotely interested in writing their own fiction should read it. And then read it again. And then take up golf.

Loneliness is a theme that runs through the book and Lucy’s provincial unease with the Big Apple at one point makes her admit to a friend that she is selfishly envious of a gay couple, quite possibly dying of AIDS, for their visible companionship.

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The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing (Canongate £16.99) is a book that concerns itself in large part with that same period of New York history and disease. Laing carries her personal narrative of loneliness from the present day in the big city, moving from one borrowed apartment to another, from one side of the island to another and refracts it through the works of artists associated with New York, (and in the case of Henry Darger, Chicago).

Beginning with Edward Hopper, whose paintings almost demand to be read as ruminations on the existential, Laing worries away at the artists’ relationship to the city. In Hopper’s case exploring the solitariness of his viewpoint and his relationship to his wife Jo, the model for the women in his paintings, but also herself an artist, and apparently, poorly treated by him.

I wouldn’t necessarily have set out to read about Hopper or Andy Warhol, her next subject – I did after all attend art school in the 1980s – but time and again Laing offers up some subtle illumination from her own diligent reading. I bought, for instance, Warhol’s A: a novel, a book composed entirely of recorded speech, when I was 18 or so. I didn’t understand it, there was no plot, and as Laing says, it’s not fiction; but here she explains simply that, like Warhol’s paintings of inappropriate objects or wholly static films it defies the rules of content, the terms by which categories are assembled and maintained. She makes plain what should have been

obvious, at least to my dumb brain, all along.

The portrait of Warhol is affecting not least because it includes a near sympathetic portrait of Valerie Solanos the woman who shot him and almost took his life, requiring him to wear a corset forever onwards. And there is the wig, or wigs, glued askance to make a virtue of their presence. Surrounded always by people and hangers on – he persuaded himself he needed them to make his art – it is only towards the end of his life when he makes art and a friendship with Jean-Michel Basquiat where curiously the roles are reversed. Basquiat had a sad life too, and when Andy dies, as someone comments, the brakes that Andy’s presence had applied to his narcotic intake come off, and he is soon dead too.

Affecting too, is the account of the early life of the artist David Wojnarowicz, which is not that greatly different from that of the fictional (and aforementioned) Lucy Barton and which comes replete with an account of the gay life of the city at the time, and the onset of AIDS. Not a new book, but a very good one that we recently read for our book group, TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (Bloomsbury paperback £8.99) begins in 1919 when a young woman witnesses the take-off of Alcock and Brown from Newfoundland for what will become, when they eventually land in the west of Ireland, the first non-stop transatlantic flight. From

there the book assembles a nest of stories that begin historically in 1845 with the visit of Frederick Douglass, the black American slave, to Dublin where he witnesses poverty of a kind he has not seen even in America. In 1998 Senator George Mitchell crosses the ocean countless times in pursuit of an Irish peace.

Elliptically, connections begin to reveal themselves and the women of the story hold it together.

In The Lonely City, Olivia Laing writes, it’s ironic that Manhattan is becoming a kind of gated island for the super-rich when one considers that in the 1970s it was closer to a gated prison for the poor.

I was reminded of this line when, encouraged by how much I enjoyed TransAtlantic, I read Colum McCann’s latest book Thirteen Ways of Looking (Bloomsbury £16.99) in which an old and frail former Supreme Court Judge wakes up in his Upper East Side apartment and idly appraises its worth. Bought twenty-seven years ago for half a million and now worth two, maybe two point four – and yet still they can’t get the heating on before five in the morning.

This is a murder story, and again a history of a life that travelled, as have many, in a similar fashion mentioned above: from Lithuania to Dublin to New York.

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What’s on THE PORTICO GALLERY Knights Hall, 23a Knights Hill, West Norwood SE27 0HS. Telephone 0208 761 7612 porticogallery.org.uk

Mambista

A monthly African, Latin and Jazz session.

Friday 25 March (Good Friday Especial) : Johnny Freyre and Kalima Project from Colombia playing Salsa, Cumbia and Merengue.

Friday 22 April : Shebeen Blues (with Clare Hirst and Claude Deppa) playing South African Township Jive.

Friday 27 May : Sarabanda mixing Cuban Son and Salsa.

Cuban-style salsa dance class at 7-8pm followed by the Mambista Mash-up with DJ Gerry Lyseight til midnight.

Tickets £6 in advance or £8 on the door (both prices include Salsa dance class).

The Portico Singers at Tate Modern

The Portico Singers will be joining a choir of 500 to perform a new composition at the opening of the new wing of the Tate Modern on Friday 17 June. If you would like to be involved, rehearsals start in March. No experience necessary.

For more details email singing tutor Abigail Sudbury at joyfulsinging1@gmail.com

Fogey Film Afternoon

Wednesdays 20 April and 18 May Film screening 2.30-4.30pm (doors 2pm) Continuing the gallery's commitment to reaching the more isolated in our community, we have aligned with South London Cares to hold a monthly film club for the over 60s. For more information visit our website or southlondoncares.org.uk

Cut a Rug: Unrugged

Friday 8 April 7-11pm Cat Meat, featuring Ian Olney Cut a Rug provides a stage and a mic for unheard talent from across the capital. £5 on the door See website below for details or email sam.mason@certitude.org.uk

Folk of the Wood

Feast Film Nights

Celine & Julie Go Boating Saturday 24 March 8pm One of the seminal films of the Seventies, this magical tale is a brilliant meditation on the art of cinema and the nature of fantasy. £5 on the door

Bazaars on FEAST Day

Sundays 3 April, 1 May and 5 June Open House 10am-4pm Showcasing all the gallery’s activities, together with a community café and stalls.

Tea Dance

Wednesdays 13 April, 11 May and 8 June 2.30-4.30pm Live music, homemade cakes, dancing, a sing-a-long, themed activities, toddlers play area, community scarf knitting! Dementia friendly and access for the disabled.

FREE admission (donations welcome) Find the West Norwood Tea Dance page on Facebook 50

Fridays 18 Mar, 15 Apr and 20 May Monthly ceilidh nights. A St Patrick's Ceilidh extravaganza (Friday 18 March) features special guests Irish dancers from the Mulvihill. Stomping Dave Allen guests at the Hoedown Ceilidh (Friday 15 April). Regularly hosted by Ceilidh Tree. Guinness, ale and scrumpy at the bar plus Irish stew by Beamish & McGlue.

Tickets £10 (look out for early bird discounts) Details at www.folkofthewood.co.uk

Transmitter Midsummer Shindig

Friday 17 June 8pm-Midnight Live music from 8-piece Shindig house band and support followed by a DJ. The booze will be cheap, the band will be rocking.

Entry by ticket only. £5 from thetransmitter.biz

Dulwich Open at The Portico Gallery

Saturday 7, Sunday 8, Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 May 11am-4pm An exhibition of artists associated with the gallery including Emma Fenelon (ceramics), Chrissy Thirlaway (figurative oil painting), Felix Price (abstract oil painting) Caroline Ward (sculpture), John Price (sculpture) and Rick Pinn (figurative gouache, ink & watercolour painting.). Artworks available for sale.

Transmitter Midsummer Shindig

Friday 17 June bar from 8pm

Live music

8-piece Shindig house band + support

The Portico Gallery Knights Hall, 23a Knights Hill, West Norwood SE27 0HS Entry ÂŁ5 by ticket only. More info and tickets from thetransmitter.biz

paulgrace-eventphotos.co.uk

Classes at The Portico Gallery

Photos by Paul Grace

Yoga : sunrise yoga Mondays to Fridays 6.30-7.30am Yoga : daytime class Wednesdays 10.30-11.30am Yoga : evening classes Mondays & Tuesdays 7-8.30pm Pottery : Tuesdays & Wednesdays 6.30-9.00pm Group singing : Wednesdays 12-1.30pm Sewing : Tuesdays & Thursdays 6.30-9.30pm Life Drawing : Thursdays 6.30-9.30pm Zumba : Wednesdays 8-8.45pm

DULWICH PICTURE GALLERY Gallery Road, Dulwich, SE21 7AD

Film

Red House Wednesday 23 March 11-12.30pm

Exhibitions

I am Van Dyck : until 24 April Nikolai Astrup (1880 – 1928): Painting Norway : until 15 May

Astrup Spring Evenings

Saturday 26 March and Saturday 23 April Late night visits to the Astrup exhibition which includes an audioguide tour and Norwegian-inspired art activities with professional artist Jo Veevers Exhibition and audioguide £15 Exhibition and two-course meal £37 dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk

METAMONO AND FRIENDS Anerley Town Hall, Anerley Road, SE20 8BD Friday 18 March 7.30pm-1.30am Crystal Palace Overground Festival presents Metamono in a fundraising concert. Also appearing are Raf and O, Sculpture, Brother G & The Trouble and Junkshop Disco Tickets £18.59

SHAKESPEARE’S BIRTHDAY AT BOOKSELLER CROW Saturday 23 April 11am Author Tony Bradman reads from his latest book The Boy and the Globe. Plus mask-making with artist-inresidence David Vallade. booksellercrow.co.uk

SOUTH LONDON THEATRE KNOWLES OF NORWOOD 294-296 Norwood Road, West Norwood, SE27 9AF Pub Quiz : Every Wednesday 8pm Great prizes and a creative Lego round: book to get the best seats.

Twitter Request Night : Every Thursday 8pm Tweet your requests to @NorwoodKnowles

SO LAST CENTURY VINTAGE AND RETRO FAIR Venue 28, 28 Beckenham Road, Beckenham BR3 4LS Sunday 20 March 11am–5pm Two floors of retro treasures from the 30s to the 70s. Tea & cake stall, gramophone DJ and café, plus gourmet hot food and bakery outside. £2 entry (or £1 with a flyer, for FB likers or Twitter followers) Under 16s FREE

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Stanley Halls, 12 South Norwood Hill, SE25 6AB Stones in his Pockets 5-9 April A tragicomic tale by Marie Jones about the impact of a Hollywood film crew on a rural Irish town.

Two into One 10-14 May Ray Cooney's finest and most innovative farce revolving around a Tory junior minister and an extramarital tryst at the time of Mrs Thatcher. ticketsource.co.uk/SLT

r Measured behaviou Mike Fairbrass -------------------* *---------------------A couple of mates A pint of beer A bag of nuts A bag of crisps A bit of advice A round of beers A grain of truth A round of beers A piece of mind A round of beers A can of worms A shot of vodka A range of insults A shot of vodka A dash of scorn A fit of anger A spot of bother A torrent of abuse A bunch of fives A drop of blood A pair of twats

PROUD PARENT

@ ECONOMYCUSTARD

ECONOMYCUSTARD.CO.UK

Š SIMON SHARVILLE 2016

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MYSTIC MIKE’S

Techst PISCES The Haddock Feb 21 - Mar 21

GEMINI The Twins May 21 - Jun 20

Pisces has its first major update for 2016 and that brings enhanced sensory input compatible with all signs across the zodiac. The ancient floppy disk is replaced by remote access streamed transcendent hosting for the dark web online community. So real time cybersex flash mobs and group Googlewhacking is now a piece of cake. Also features essential browsing history auto delete.

This budget wireless charging zodiac tablet with Firefox OS may boast guardian spirits but overall it’s a loser. Not only does the paired twin core coincide with an adverse aspect to Virgo, but they won’t talk to each other across standardised platforms or digital streaming bit torrents. Basic Chromecasting across peer to peer or mind to mind mesh networks is just about possible but it takes huge concentration.

Verdict: Abracadabra!

Rating: 9/10 Pros: Comes with travel case Cons: Software may go hard.

Spirit animal: Ant

Verdict: Shit Rating: 2/10 Pros: Lightweight Cons: Won’t support cookies Spirit animal: Human

ARIES

CANCER

The Ram Mar 22 - Apr 20

The Crab Jun 21 - Jul 20

Calculated from the Moon's orbit around the Earth, Arians are now backwards compatible with Sagittarian incantations and synergistically but not asynchronously supported by most browsers - given sufficient bandwidth and if a decent hot spot is available via your crystal ball. Great news for psychics in this budget range.

As predicted, this Cancerian flagship offering includes wearable wireless tantric vibration but-pluggable gadgetry which uplinks Cancerian couples to Gemini twins via Uranus. Aquarian third party clairvoyants can now effortlessly union with vast ancient pay per click fertility cloud based data libraries, though be aware that geekgasm content can go viral.

Verdict: Reincarnated Rating: 8/10 Pros: Automatic writing software Cons: Quickly drains the energies of your soul.

Spirit animal: Goblin

Verdict: Almost Nirvana Rating: 9.5/10 Pros: Universal Interconnectedness port Cons: Causes extensive buffering.

Spirit animal: Blob Fish

TAURUS The Bull Apr 21 - May 20

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M Y S T IC

T OP T ECH T I

M I K E’S

P

LEO The Lion Jul 21 - Aug 20

Taureans now boast higher fidelity from water signs, so the imprints of auto-optimized high-bandwidth legacy media digital footprints are really clear. Its petite size is a bonus and it’s fully compatible - even with Aquarians. However, the longstanding glitch requiring manual input of longitude and latitude of the birthplace takes the edge off installing what is otherwise a very accurate nativity chart.

Leos can now enjoy both point and click and plug-and-play hubs for quad-core drones. Air Signs are offered on demand by surfing or browsing the ecliptic, but astral light tabulation of Sun, Moon and planets attracts every hacker in the firmament meaning constant Sanscrit spam, Feng Shui fate phishing and constant bad Karma.

Verdict: Out of Body Experience Rating: 7/10 Pros: Ectoplasm coating Cons: Can leak dark matter.

Spirit animal: Dodo

Verdict: Ouija bored Rating: 3/10 Pros: Free 30 day Telekenesis trial Cons: Unpredictable.

Spirit animal: Lemming

Mystic Mike boldly goes where no astrology has boldly gone before to star test and review the latest STAR TECH.

With digitally enhanced wisdom resolution (2560 x 1440 pixels), emotional connectivity to the astro web and a variable bitrate (for the final lunar phase), Virgos are finally ready to take on anything in the solar system – but crucially only if the planets are appropriately configured. Without alignment they are apt to celestial droning and the online support is costly. The Unicorn doesn’t help either. Disappointing.

Verdict: Badly Channelled Rating: 4/10 Pros: Free Cabbala Cons: Liable to crash/disk errors.

Spirit animal: Kitten LIBRA The Scales Sep 21 - Oct 20

SAGITTARIUS The Archer Nov 21 - Dec 20

An extremely cheap bundle but when symbolised by Libra via their aura cloud Sagittarians (as part man, part beast) will only launch in safe mode due to a conjunction of cosmic malware causing total astrological program/hard drive psychic brain dump or mindfulness file erase when a full Moon occurs twice anywhere in the universe. It’s a universal dud. Avoid!

Verdict: Economy Occultism Rating: 2/10 Pros: Portable Cons: Malevolent daemons Spirit animal: Chihuahua CAPRICORN The Goat(ee) Dec 21 - Jan 20

Libras new 5th generation Intel Core chipsets mean simple navigation between Leo and Taurus using the back button is a doddle. Huge Octa-core processing power lets you toggle between provider by partnering with the same core OS and Wi-Fi star router. Bolt on a cuspal high dynamic range graphics card for birth-time rectification.

When multitasking between Capricorn and Pisces in this mid-range sign, you can sync the two via a USB, wireless, or Bluetooth spiritual connection with a ascendant protocol or use virtual reality mindsets for a 360 degree downloadable star chart depicting the transitional phase towards actualisation of the Age of Aquarius. Ready to take on the cosmos.

Verdict: Best Destiny!

Rating: 9/10 Pros: Meditative CPU Cons: Evil Spirit animal: Octopus

Verdict: Neutron Star buy!

Rating: 9/10 Pros: Fully Holistic Cons: Not compatible with the Tree of Life Spirit animal: Pig

SCORPIO The Hunter Oct 21 - Nov 20

AQUARIUS The Water Carrier Jan 21 - Feb 20

Interface of the vernal point between Scorpio and Cancer finally heralds a user friendly cosmic event with virtual community paths to online instant message thread audiences enabling a fully awakened Buddha. Pair with an HDMI (1.4 vs 2.0) Java harmonics bytecode star chart and gesture recognition processor for a superb all round package.

We expected more from this Oculus Rift 3Terrabyte Aquarian zodiac Dongle. Admittedly the 4K and 5G occult aspect ratio of 21:9 is impressive, but why does the dynamic HTML and CSS run Latin script from the natal chart? Version 2.0 sits on rails for Android Alchemy and Mac OS elixir (when in panacea mode) or Windows 10 or above.

Verdict: Higher Consciousness Rating: 9/10 Pros: Built in Healing Crystal Cons: No Satan setting.

Spirit animal: Narwhal

Verdict: Run-of-the-millennium Rating: 5/10 Pros: Great Transmitter Cons: No inner self Spirit animal: Naked Mole Rat 55

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