WUWO Magazine Edition 8

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CHRISTMAS SANTA HIGH TRUMPS COMEDY

TRUE STORIES

MUSIC

TRAVEL

FOOD

GADGETS & GIMMICKS

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Contents

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It's funny how Christmas creeps up on us, its the same every year, round and round we go.

Next time lets look over our shoulders and be prepared for the time when TV commercials are sprinkled with Christmas dust. But for now we have to get prepared, ready and dance via the Christmas beat - so be on your guard at the Christmas party, be careful whilst on your Christmas shop - even if your online orders do not arrive on time, do not worry, just be calm as it's only another year of Christmas cheer.

We welcome you to WUWO Magazine's Christmas edition. XXX

FEATURES 08 WUWO New Columnist Aisling Bea Has Arrived.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love children. They’re great craic and often make better YouTube videos than puppies and grumpy cats, but when told they can have anything they want, the power goes to their tiny heads.

14 Who Owns London?

What are you getting this Christmas? An iPad? Or a large portion of the UK’s capital city? Yep, that bench you're eating your sandwich on isn't yours, but probably owned by a guy with a name similar to a medieval knight. Or a woman who bloody loves swans.

16 Santa High Trumps

No Christmas flick would be complete without some form of white bearded man sporting a red suit with fur trim (worrying BMI optional) just like no Christmas would be complete without something that unexpectedly lights up or a really tacky hat.

20 Meet Comedian Joe Lycett

20 seconds into my conversation with comedian Joe Lycett I have already figured out he is a salt of the earth guy. It’s nice to meet a man that is content and happy in the moment, a combination that is rare to find - but Joe seems to have discovered it.

22 N athan Bowen, Art, Demons and BBC The Apprentice Fame

Nathan will be putting up floating foam cut outs of Santa and Elf demons high up on building walls.

REGULARS 04 Gadgets 11 Gimmicks 12 Music 26 Trends 30 Food 32 Travel wuwomagazine.com

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GADGETS

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An End To Soggy Cereal

By Jack Courtez

TNT Computer-Nuker The TNT Computer Nuke is basically a USB plunger that speedily shuts down your computer when you push down on it. The shutdown is accompanied by giant on-screen explosions and sound effects.

While basic in principle, it has

For those with teeth and a functioning stomach, soggy and mushy cereal is the bane of breakfast.

This bowl keeps your milk and morning fuel of choice separate, until the moment of munching.

The Obol Bowl has two tiers featuring a lower reservoir for milk and an upper one for cereal. The usefulness of this bowl extends way past 11 am, as it can also be used for milk and cookies, soup and crackers, nachos and salsa or fruit and yoghurt.

The bottom is textured to avoid slips and spills which also makes it by far the best bowl for duvet days and breakfast in bed. This tool in the war against wilted Weetabix is made of thick polypropylene to prevent the chipping, smashing and cracking which plague so many other bowls.

At £17.99 each, it is perfect for both Weekday alarm clock rushes and nostalgic Sunday morning cartoon sessions. www.obol.co

Beer Savers

Touch Screen Gloves Cold weather and touch screens normally results in icy fingers for those that refuse to let winter interrupt their smart phone addiction. Many companies are now designing gloves with “special fabric” woven into the fingertips to work with devices without damaging the screen.

While many allow the screen to register a touch, not many are specifically designed for portable touch screens. Many have no grip which makes holding the phone a challenge in itself. Some are “one size fits all” (baggy), this means your finger becomes half the size of the phone.

The best solution so far seems to be iPrints. iPrints can be applied to any pair of gloves to make them compatible with touch screens. The best gloves to apply them to are ski gloves with narrowed fingers for accuracy.

Iprints cost £5 and come with enough transfers to retrofit all 10 fingers, or save money by just applying 5 to your dexterous hand and saving the rest. www.iprints.org.uk

HTC J Butterfly Phone displays have gone a long way in 10 years, from the first popular colour display phone in 2001 to the HTC J Butterfly, the first to feature full HD (1920×1080).

Announced in Japan on October 13, the newest HTC model boasts a quad-core 1.5GHz processor, an eight megapixel camera and 2GB memory. www.htcsource.com

many possible applications.

Rage-quit games in anger and style instead of just throwing the keyboard around. Hide your dirty porn habit behind a fiery wall of death. Or scare the crap out of a colleague by plugging it into their PC. The main downside is that the designers overestimated people’s will power and the influence of Looney Tunes. I hardly manage to prevent house mates from accidentally pulling the plug out, let alone keep them away from a bright red cartoon detonator.

At £11.89 it is a cheap way to add humour to an office, just make sure it is unplugged when writing that 200 page report...

www.no1gadgetstore.co.uk

These silicone beer stoppers go further than most anti-spiking devices in actually keeping your drink fresh by resealing the bottle.

The six-pack of re-usable bottle toppers keeps beer from going flat and keeps it colder for longer.

The practicality of this product depends on your drinking habits. Guzzlers will inevitably find the bottom of the bottle before it goes flat, but these caps are great for that slow after-work drink, keeping your drink safe while you smoke/dance or for keeping bigger bottles fresh.

Forgetting what bottle is yours at the pub and taking a guess is like playing Russian roulette with facial herpes. These brightly coloured stoppers help you keep track of your drink without having to babysit your bottle.

A downside of alcohol is forgetfulness so expect to lose a couple of lids. Each pack costs £9.99 www.coolmaterial.com

AKs and Ice Cube Ice Cube once famously said “I didn’t even have to use my AK, Today was a good day.” However the Kalashnikov got the last laugh by making a good day out of Ice Cubes.

This ammunition shaped freezer gadget combines two Russian stereotypes, weapons and drinking. The result is a bullet that can pack a rum punch.

The magazine-shaped ice tray holds 12 ‘rounds’ which is just enough to add some intrigue to your drinks. The freezer gadget doubles as a serving tray which highlights the link before the ice melts into unrecognisable 3 inch phallic objects.

The bullets freeze quickly due to the shape, which means an ammo-efficient host can quickly reload to keep up with an action packed party.

One magazine costs £6.49 or go Rambo and doubleup for £12.98. www.thinkgeek.com

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FEATURE

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C8 H10 N4 O2

A History of Trimethylxanthine (AKA Caffeine)

By Sophie Ashwood

Who discovered coffee, tea and caffeine?

An Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi is said to have discovered coffee when, in the 9th Century his goats started jumping about all over the place after eating some mysterious red berries. He decided to give it a go himself and - after jumping about all over the place with his goats - Kaldi reportedly showed the berries to an Islamic holy man who did not approve and threw them into the fire. This inadvertently roasted them and he accidentally invented coffee. Thanks, Kaldi/ Islamic holy man.

The first cup of tea was allegedly brewed in 2737 B.C when dried leaves landed in a boiling cup of water served to the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung.

Apparently he decided to drink it anyway and then tea hit the nation. An extraordinary coincidence that the leaves happened to be tea leaves, but who are we to argue with hard, historical facts?

Despite regularly drinking tea and coffee, caffeine itself was discovered as late as 1819 when Friedlieb Runge analysed some coffee beans for German poet Goethe and extracted the first ever sample.

What's pure caffeine?

Consumed by nearly 90% of the population in one form or another, caffeine is an incredibly bitter white powder found in 63 different plants and extracted either by steaming, soaking and rinsing or applying chemicals. Weirdly, it uses the same mechanisms as amphetamines, cocaine and heroin to stimulate you.

But is, obviously, a lot less addictive.

What happens when you drink a cuppa?

0-15 MINUTES: caffeine enters the bloodstream

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Overdosing on latte Glugging ten cups of coffee a day is generally agreed ??NOT?? to be a dangerous amount; but not so improbably when you think a Starbucks Venti Americano contains a whopping 300mg of caffeine per cup. Having three of those bad-boys could lead to overdose symptoms from insomnia and shaking to vomiting, irregular heartbeat and even death (this is very rare), depending on your tolerance/weight.

If you’ve overdone it, best to replace your usual fix with something decaffeinate. Like a herbal tea.

Or an orange.

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Father “caffeine high” Christmas and the Coca Cola company The Father Christmas we know and love was invented by Coca Cola because laws in the early 1900s wouldn’t allow children to feature in ads for caffeine.

Despite levels being fairly low in a serving of regular Coke (around 35mg), they had to come up with new ways of getting kids into Coca Cola without showing them on TV. Why not invent a friendly Santa who can only get through Christmas night with the help of Coke? And, more importantly, the caffeine/sugar high that comes with it? Genius.

through the stomach wall and the intestines.

15-30 MINUTES: effects begin to take place.

The decaf myth

30-60 MINUTES: effects peak, you’ll feel at your most alert. Often called the caffeine high.

If you’re avoiding caffeine, don’t go decaf. A recent study tested 36 cups of small decaf coffees from six places and found that around half had between 20 to 32 mg per cup. Considering only 20mg of caffeine can have an effect, and depending on how much you glug each day, you could very well end up drinking more caffeine from decaf drinks than you would in one cup of coffee.

60+ MINUTES: effects subside.

3-12 HOURS: Half the caffeine will have been expelled from your body. Caffeine withdrawal symptoms (if any) subside.

12-24 HOURS: When withdrawal symptoms are most commonly reported.

24-48 HOURS: Withdrawal symptoms peak and body returns to normal.

Addiction is all in the mind: There’s always one who yaps on about their yawningly terrible coffee withdrawal symptoms, but the infamous headaches, irritability and insomnia are all psychological. So much so that in 2004 coffee withdrawal became an officially recognised mental disorder, and the symptoms people reported in recent studies have nothing to do with how much coffee you drink. It’s all in your head, so tell that to Brian and his so-called “addiction”.

There's no evidence coffee does any long-term harm but, if you’re pregnant or have high blood pressure, it’s best to limit your intake. While it’s a very mild diuretic, when drunk in moderation, the loss of fluid is very minimal.

Who drinks the most caffeine?

Sweden and Finland are the world’s hardcore coffee drinkers, consuming around 400mg of caffeine daily, with America and Canada coming in at just 250mg.

In the UK, while we still, somewhat stereotypically, drink more tea than coffee, our daily caffeine consumption is around the 350mg mark - only slightly less than our Scandinavian coffee-guzzling friends.

Coffee houses Until the 19th Century, cafés were important places to argue about stuff and express opinions until Charles II got terrified/paranoid of all this “talking” and attempted to ban them. This was never successful due to the fact that his accusations of coffee houses as places of “ill-repute” (read: sex dens) were entirely unfounded, and he also got his head chopped off in the end.

Joe Lycett recommends a coffee house called Notes – St Martins Lane, just off Trafalgar Square.

“They do a flat white to die for”!

- Joe Lycett comedy interview on page 20

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FEATURE

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If there is one thing that I learned from my time working as a Christmas elf in an illfated industrial sized grotto built on an Irish racecourse, it’s that children are manipulative monsters…. also that cheap face paint gives you a rash and live reindeer bite. facebook.com/whatsupwhatson

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Now don’t get me wrong, I love children. They’re great craic and often make better YouTube videos than puppies and grumpy cats, but when told they can have anything they want, the power goes to their tiny heads.

I was once one of these tiny heads. As a child in a single parent family, I quickly learned that in order to get more stuff than you needed, all you had to do was ask emotionally awkward questions and instead of an answer you got a My Little Pony. RESULT. I also learned that if a man came to woo my mother and I legged it to the door fast enough, I got a solid ten seconds alone with him to convey how much better their date would go, if next time he arrived with a Porcelain doll.

At the age of five I decided that there was no God. The game was up for religion. It seemed a little bit mad that a son could be his own father. There was just no evidence.* I was FIVE not STUPID. But there was one magical man in my life that I could rely on, with more than enough evidence to support his existence. I’d sat on his knee for Christ’s sake! He had an Irish accent and smelled like boiled ham, which, at the time, was my favourite meat.

Every year, I would write that jolly, fat lad one scrimsly letter and he would GIVE.

Image: actual original

ME. STUFF. I mean, he did sometimes get it wrong. One year we asked for “Disney’s The Little Mermaid” and he accidentally sent us a pirated copy of “Disney’s Water Themed Sing-a-Long Songs Including Three Hit Numbers From The Little Mermaid”. But sure we all make mistakes and what did we expect? He was a MAN! (Am I right ladies?).

And then I got to thinking… what if I could manipulate the emotions of SANTA CLAUS to get more stuff throughout the year!? Genius. I decided to send him a love letter in July, which, as far as I knew, no other eejit

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Personality wise, I haven’t changed much.

I am still as manipulative and deceitful with men as I was then “DON’T LEAVE! I’LL TELL EVERYONE THAT YOU HIT ME”. But if I were still legally allowed to ask a man in fancy dress to break into my house in the middle of the night and leave a something stuffed in a sock, I’d probably change what I’d ask for.

Aisling Bea

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had ever even thought to do. He would think I was such a lovely girl to remember him during the slow business period and send me stuff for being so lovely.

You will see this letter attached with an artist’s impression of what the scene might look like were he to turn up. I’m not going to lie, lads. It didn’t work. In a situation that would continue into my twenties, he didn’t reply. I think I came on too strong when I told him that I loved him. Perhaps I should have done it all over the phone.

That Christmas, despite his total lack of response, I wrote another letter going old school and asking directly for cold, hard stuff.

Dear Santa, I am a casting age of 25-35.

Could I please have a society that does not encourage young women to look like Barbie's and old women to look like young women? Could I also encourage men to protect beavers (that is a euphemism) and let them look and behave how they like without anyone interfering or pressuring them to be or do anything they don’t want to? And please, no surprises. I really didn’t expect to get a tax bill last year and I’d forgotten to put anything aside.

Thank you very much Santa Claus.

Aisling.

PS. It would be great if I could if you could get me an extended warranty for my Mac. I broke the disk drive sticking a hair clip into it trying to eject a DVD that turned out not to actually be in there.

PPS. I really did love you. Why did you never reply? Was it her? *My religious scepticism may have been partially motivated by the fact that Sesame Street was on at the same time as Mass.

Dear Santa, I am five. Could I please have a Barbie Make Up Head? Could I also have The Sylvanian Beaver Family and perhaps a surprise? Thank you very much Santa Claus.

Aisling.

PS. If you have anything that no one wants, I will take it.

Image: actual original

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FEATURE

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Curiosity Killed the Cat. wuwomagazine.com

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Hand picked curious happenings, venues, clubs and shops from across London and beyond.

The Magic Circle

Café 1001

Who can join? Join what? The magic circle of course!

They refer to membership of the magic circle as the most prestigious club in the world. If you want to join them you can, of course you have to be good at magic and at the same time you need an existing member to sponsor you. But who’s to say you can’t find a magic member to help you on your way and introduce you to the inner circle, not without its controversy as Paul Daniels once said the circle can be extremely rude.

But if your still not put off why not take a peek at their website www.themagiccircle.co.uk There is both an initial Joining Fee, which is currently £100, and an Annual Membership Fee, which is between £50 and £165.

One of WUWO coolest finds in terms of a café stroke nightclub combined. They also have film screenings, photography and art exhibitions, it’s a great looking warehouse style venue with a good atmosphere most hours of the day. They serve hot and cold food they make in house, also including an outdoor BBQ fired up all year round. This is a WUWO recommended venue that is just right for a chill out in the day, a free Wi-Fi area in the afternoon or a rave at night. Visit them at Café 1001, 91 Brick Lane, London, E1 6QL. www.cafe1001.co.uk Fact: Bricklane existed under its modern name as early as 1550, it could of been a place where clay was dug to make tiles or where brick-earth was dug.

Absolute Vintage

Propaganda NYE

Girls and Boys do you want to look as stylish and retro as our magazine? Well if the answer is yes then head down to Absolute Vintage in Shoreditch.

They have a very curious shop with all the clothes you need to keep warm this Christmas. The shop is at 15 Hanbury Street, London, E1 6QR. All their items are handpicked and they claim to have the largest vintage shoe and bag collection in the UK. So If like WUWO you feel a touch of the past helps design the perfect future, then we guess this shop is for you. www.absolutevintage.co.uk

Have a fetish to dress like an animal but afraid to try? Well we have a perfect get out (or in get in) clause for you. The Propaganda NYE party, it promises to be Propaganda’s wildest New Years Eve Party to date. Hosted at the o2 Shepherd’s Bush you can expect an unbeatable animal adventure. They will take you deep into the heart of the animal kingdom with a unique safari and amazing acrobats that will be sure to make you see in 2013 as true Propaganda New Years Eve Party Animals! So costume up and be free as you let yourself go wild style.

For more info head to www.thepropaganda.com.

Fact: The word "animal" comes from the Latin word animalis, meaning "having breath"

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GIMMICKS

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Contributors WUWO Media

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Christmas and New Years is a season celebrated with repeats of Wallace and Gromit, turkey and the dangerous mix of alcohol and explosives.

While fireworks are a staple of many celebrations around the world, even a sparkler seems to turn the most safety conscious of us into raging pyromaniacs.

San Diego Over in San Diego in 2012, 18 minutes and $300,000 worth of fireworks went off in 15 seconds creating the most over and underwhelming display of all time. The explosion caused the ground to shake and a light which resembled staring at the sun.

Greece

Editor in Chief Steven Godwin Features editor Stevie Martin Copy Editor Laura Hester Head of Design Nita Saroglou Design Support Andrew Brown Writers Jack Courtez Ralph Jones Nader Khouri Fergus Dufton Aisling Bea Richard Galbraith Sophie Ashwood Online Editor Jack Courtez To get in contact about editorial requests editorial@wuwomagazine.com Advertising requests advertising@wuwomagazine.com

Rouketopolemos is an event on the Greek Island of Chios. Two churches use the Easter message of forgiveness to declare war on each other and launch over 600,000 rockets at each other after sunset. The surrounding villages have to be heavily fortified with metal sheets and mesh to survive the bombardment. The churches used to use real canons until this was banned in 1889.

WUWO Magazine is published monthly by WUWO Media. We try and make sure all our information is correct but details may be subject to change. Any physical submissions are sent at the owners risk and we will accept no responsibility for loss or damage. Nothing printed in WUWO Magazine can be copied or republished without our written permission.

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Mexico

United Kingdom

In Mexico people celebrate Easter by stuffing fireworks into models of things they don’t like and running around with the explosive-laced statues above their heads. Injuries are common due to the rockets which fly off in all directions.

Lewes in Sussex celebrates Guy Fawkes by burning effigies of controversial figures such as George Bush jnr, the Pope and Mario Balotelli. The effigy is kept secret until a few days before the event.

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MUSIC

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By Fergus Dufton

Songs from the Ads

Kasabi-nan

Ever seen an advert on telly and wondered what the song in the background was? Well WUWO is here to help.

Each month we dig up a musical relic that needs to be dusted off and reinjected back into your life...

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Artist Quick Fire Questions

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Forgotten Bands Each month WUWO investigates a band from “the where are they now” pile, shedding light on what became of them after the glorydays. This month… what happened to Aqua?

Sarah Young Eclectic DJ and pusher of world sound boundaries Sarah Young talks to WUWO after releasing her EP The Chant last month.

Passion Pit Much as the face of Helen of Troy was said to launch a thousand ships, Sony are hoping that launch title Little Big Planet will help to sell a thousand (probably more than a thousand) new PS Vita hand-held consoles.

To reflect the often wacky, usually downright mad world of Little Big Planet the makers have gone with “Take a Walk” by Passion Pit, opening track from their recent second album Gossamer. The band specialises in combining synthesisers, samples and guitars to create strangely beautiful music, seems like a good fit to me.

Sad your favourite artist has thrown in the towel? Need something to fill the void? WUWO can help!

If you have an Oasis shaped hole in your life that fails to be filled

by Beady Eye or Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, perhaps it's time to try something new.

Enter Jake Bugg, an 18 year old singer songwriter who has spent the last couple of months exploding onto the U K music scene with his single Two Fingers, whilst releasing his selftitled début album.

Despite frequent comparisons to Bob Dylan, there is more than a little of Oasis in his music and Noel Gallagher counts himself a fan too.

Best gig you've done?

I went to New York last summer and they're so free spirited... some of them don’t even buy drinks - they just come to see you! The best audience a DJ can play to is one that loves music.

Depeche Mode Who are they?

The best thing ever to come from Basildon and one of the most important electro bands of the 80s.

When were they at their height?

It's hard to pick out an individual highlight from a band that have been rocking it out for so long, but we would have to go with the late 80s to early 90s as the band’s peak years - seeing the release of albums Black Celebration (1986), Music for the Masses (1987) and Violator (1990).

Where are they now?

Depeche Mode are still very much active - releasing an EP of Personal Jesus remixes just last year. After a flurry of rumours, the band has announced they will tour next year although no dates are confirmed as yet.

Where do I start?

Pick up their album Violator that features Personal Jesus, one of their most recognisable hits.

If you weren't a DJ...

I studied fashion styling London College of Fashion and worked in music styling at the same time so probably that. I loved it, and had great clients, but also DJed at night for extra money. When it came to deciding... I realised I couldn't give music up!

Hardest thing about DJing?

The late nights. I'm not a raver... I'm not into that whole thing of getting trashed and going out. The one time I'll be out and celebrating is if I love the DJ or the music.

How do you relax?

I like chilling out in cafés with my friends. I'm a real foodie.

Dream collaboration?

I'd love to have Missy Elliot rap over one of my beats.

Oh, and the minute I collaborate with Diplo I'll be like "yeah boy I've made it!"

Dream gig?

A gig on the top of the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, the seven star hotel! I'd probably freak out due to the height.

I'd also love to DJ in Jamaica - dance hall, reggae is awesome... Jamaican crowds are brilliant too.

Aqua From their breakthrough single Barbie Girl, to the genuinely touching Turn Back Time, Aqua were the school disco DJ’s weapon of choice throughout the late nineties/early noughties.

Forming way back in 1989 the group originally went under the name Joyspeed but, after discovering singer Lene Nystrom singing on a Norway to Denmark ferry, vocalist René Dif and producers Søren Rasted and Claus Norreen changed their name to Aqua.

It was the release of Aquarium in 1997 that launched Aqua to Euro-pop stardom. The first three singles (Barbie Girl, Doctor Jones and Turn Back Time) hit number 1 in the UK. Aquarius, the follow-up, did well before the suddenly split in 2001. Maybe they couldn’t think of any more album titles containing the word “Aqua”. Maybe the guys in the band couldn’t decide who got to date Lene.

Reforming in 2007, they toured and recorded new tracks in the shape of 2011’s Megalomania and, in theory, the band survives to this day. While it’s easy to mock them, 33 million albums and singles sales are figures that can’t really be argued with.

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FEATURE

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Who Owns London?

By Stevie Martin Image by Images_of_Money

What are you getting this Christmas? An iPad? Or a large portion of the UK’s capital city? Yep, that bench you're eating your sandwich on isn't yours, but probably owned by a guy with a name similar to a medieval knight. Or a woman who bloody loves swans. Or perhaps the son of a porn baron.

Despite a tendency to side-step the spotlight, it's true that central London pretty much belongs to a handful of people so wealthy they could buy you 17,000 sandwiches made of gold. Take a look at our guide to discover those who who run this town: Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster Gerald owns 100 acres of Mayfair and 200 acres of Belgravia which - as we all know - is an alright part of London. To give you an idea of the sort of money we're talking, the Grosvenor Group once sold a 65sq ft parking space in Mayfair for £65,000. Yes. Gerald himself once appeared on Desert Island Discs , picked Fleetwood Mac (Albatross - FYI) and

had a natter about how much he hated Harrow.

Consequently, he sent his three kids to a state school and is adamant they'll always appreciate how privileged they are. Which is, quite a lot.

The Crown Unsurprisingly, Her Madge has inherited a good 265 acres of London, including a load on Kensington Palace Gardens - the most expensive street in the UK

(and one of the richest in the world). Leading up to Kensington Palace, the road is laden with ambassadors and an assortment of astronomically wealthy people - the average house price being a cheeky £19 million.

Oh, and those massive properties overlooking Regent's Park, Richmond Green and Eltham Palace are also theirs too and all profits of the Crown Estate goes directly to the

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Exchequer. That's nice of them, isn't it? To keep the people who manage the collection of our taxes adequately funded.

The Howard De Waldon Descendents The Honourable Jessica White, Camilla Acloque, Susan Buchan and Hazel Czernin inherited a quarter each of the 92 acres their father - the late Howard De Waldon - owned. Including Harley Street, Wimpole Street, Marylebone High Street and Cavendish Square, they also own Chandos House. As in the exclusive Georgian Townhouse venue on Queen Anne Street - not the popular Sammy Smiths pub by the National Portrait Gallery.

Interesting fact: the late Howard de Waldon moved to Munich in 1931, bought a car and on the first day driving it, knocked over a pedestrian. The pedestrian was Adolf Hitler.

Christopher Portman, 10th Viscount Portman Owning 110 acres between Oxford Street and Edgeware Road (including Portman Square - obviously), the Portmans bagged the land way back in the 16th century before Sir William Portman became Lord Chief Justice to Henry VIII. Within the empire, there's 800 residential flats and houses, 215 offices, 130

shops and restaurants, 32 hotels and eight pubs as well as a magazine for residents, and Portman Village on Seymour Place and New Quebec Street.

Oh, and a little department store you may have heard of called Selfridges.

Earl Cadogan Aside from having the best name, Cadogan can walk from Sloane Square to Harrods without stepping off his own land.

Spanning 90 acres between Knightsbridge and Albert Bridge, the Old Etonian (blatantly) also knows what he likes and shuts down what he doesn't.

In 2008, Cadogan refused to renew The Oriel Brasserie's license because, and we quote: “I didn't like the food and the prices are far too high."

He's also a bit of a hero, having battled against the building of lavish properties on land originally intended for "the working classes" and winning his corner.

Bravo, man.

Paul Raymond Well, not exactly. After the porn baron and owner of practically all of Soho died in 2008, his 60 acres were amicably split between his son Howard Raymond and his stepson John James. The £75 million fortune was left to his two granddaughters, but with caveats in place to ensure, in Howard's own

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words: "it doesn't disappear up their noses.”

John James casually bought Foyles, and Howard is backing new movie - The King Of Soho - starring Steve Coogan as Paul Raymond. Having opened the first strip club in Britain in 1958, the famous Raymond Revuebar is now owned by granddaughter Fawn James and known as The Box - if you fancy checking it out.

Charlotte Townshend As well as owning 40 acres of Holland Park (and a total of 15,000 acres in the UK) Charlotte Townshend loves a spot of hunting and is the only person in Britain other than the Queen who is allowed to own swans.

Spending most of her time in Dorset, she's joint master of the Cattistock hunt and - upon the birth of her son - decided to follow an ancient tradition by laying him on a swan's nest. As you do.

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FEATURE

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Santa High Trumps

Voice of Ed Ivory

Richard Attenborough

Appearance: 5 Ever seen an endearing cartoon Christmas card? Well, it'll be of this guy.

Appearance: 5 Young Martha tells her mother: "He looks like every picture of every Santa Claus I've ever seen!" and, to be honest, he bloody does.

The Nightmare Before Christmas - Jolly animated sort is kidnapped and thrown into the boogie man's den.

Miracle On 34th Street (1994 version) - Santa Claus wrongly accused in court of being insane.

By Stevie Martin

No Christmas flick would be complete without some form of white bearded man sporting a red suit with fur trim (worrying BMI optional) just like no Christmas would be complete without something that unexpectedly lights up or a really tacky hat. Whether it's a toy shop grotto or the real thing, how do you separate the wheat Santas from the chaff?

With High Trumps of course.

For those not au fait with this delicate dark art, it’s a much better Christmas game than charades with your drunk Uncle Steve (everyone has one) and is suitable for the whole family. You don’t even have to buy cards because we’ve provided them below. Additionally, if you wish to make more cards then go ahead - there’s a whole world of Santas out there. Remember Leslie Nielsen’s star turn in both Santa Who and All I Want For Christmas in 2000? No? Oh. Well there are definitely others.

How to play: Divide the cards equally between two players. Each player holds them in a face up stack so they can only see their top card, and the other player can’t see their card. The player reads out an attribute and, whoever’s first card has the highest score relating to that attribute wins both the cards. Play continues until someone has won all the cards. If there’s ever a tie with a specific card, both players place the card in the centre of the table and the turn remains with the same player. Whoever wins the next turn collects both the cards on each stack, and on the table. We don’t condone gambling here at WUWO, but it makes things a lot more exciting if there’s milk tray at stake.

Brains: 2 Is outfoxed by three children who refer to him as "Sandy Claws". They stealthily lead him into a trap while loudly singing a rather significant song about kidnapping him.

Brawn: 0 Weight is a weakness - too fat to really do anything other than ride on a sleigh and laugh.

Often can't fit through escape-holes.

Reindeer skills: 5 In a reindeer-off with imposter Jack Skellington, wins most comfortably.

Non-believer Conversion Rate: n/a as nobody questions him.

Brains: 3 Naivety is a weakness often exploited by opponents as this Santa is honest regardless of the stakes, or the price.

Brawn: 3 Reluctant to go into battle but will bop a man on the head with a stick if provoked.

Reindeer skills: 5 Never shows them off, but clearly has plenty of experience.

Non-believer Conversion Rate: 5 Unstoppable.

Has been known to convert the law, the entire state of Manhattan (and, considering mass media, the rest of the television-viewing world), and a nice lady.

Ed Asner

Billy Bob Thornton

Appearance: 4 Looks good in a sort of cartoonish way. Sports an excellent pair of Christmas braces.

Appearance: 2 Can look convincing, but often doesn't make the effort.

Brains: 3 Letting Buddy the Elf into NYC may inadvertently be a good idea, but constructing a sleigh that runs off Christmas Spirit in the 21st century isn't.

Brains: 4 A smart-talking Claus who plans mall robberies and, despite cynicism, is willing to let Christmas spirit into his heart. Deceptively open minded.

Brawn: 4 Survives a fairly serious sleigh-crash, so is deemed tougher than he looks.

Brawn: 5 If you got into a fight, he'd probably win because of his own admission, "I can't box for sh*t but I'm good in a fight because I can't feel anything."

And he'd play dirty too.

Elf - A wise sort, who allows one of his clearly human elves to go and find his real parents.

Reindeer-skills: 0 Drives the Kringle 3000: 500 Reindeer-Power Jet Engine sleigh. No reindeer handling necessary, so a definite weakness to be found here. Also crashes it.

Non-believer conversion rate: 2 Gives up fairly easily. In fact, it's down to Elf and the people of NYC to believe, which is poor form for a Father Christmas.

Bad Santa - Mall prowling Father Christmas robs every place he works.

Reindeer skills: 0 Has never ridden, attempted to ride, or considered riding a reindeer-drawn sleigh.

So probably non-existent.

Non-believer Conversion Rate: 0 Fails to convert anyone. Is converted himself by a small fat child.

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Patton Oswalt

A Very Harold And Kumar Christmas 3D - Toy store Santa with a cheerful habit.

Tim Allen

The Santa Clause - A normal guy reluctantly inherits the role of St Nick.

just for Students

Appearance: 4 Big, jolly, fat and bearded. Looks the part and the kids all want to sit on his lap.

Brains: 2 Deals weed on the side and is often stoned. Does bestow his samples with appropriate festive names though, e.g. Rudolph the Red-Eyed Reindeer and Winter Wonderweed.

Appearance: 4 Loses a point for inconsistency but quickly gains weight, grows an unshaveable beard and develops an insatiable appetite for milk and cookies. Perfect.

Brawn: 3 There's no hard examples, but he looks like the sort of guy you wouldn't want to mess with.

Unlesss stoned, clearly.

Brains: 4 Quick witted, good at his toy marketing job, comes up with good excuses when questioned on initial un-Santa-like appearance, "I'm on a diet" and "I shaved".

Reindeer skills: 0 Non existent Non-believe Conversion Rate: 0 Would, if anything, spur more non-believers with his Christmas-themed drugs of choice.

Brawn: 3 inadvertently kills Santa, but prefers to talk himself out of trouble as opposed to starting fist fights.

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Reindeer skills: 4 Quick to grasp new reindeeroriented tasks despite initial problems. Is a consummate professional by the end.

Non-believer Conversion Rate: 4 Converts everyone who doubted him. Small scale, but still a 100% hit rate, so, imagine the possibilities.

Tom Hanks

The Polar Express - A traditional Father Christmas in all senses meets a young boy at the north pole and gives him a special gift.

Paul Giamatti

Fred Claus - Santa has to deal with his irritating younger brother, Fred.

Appearance: 1 To be honest, a little terrifying, thanks to innovative CGI. Reminiscent of a cheese dream.

Brains: 2 Allows a young boy to choose the first gift of Christmas. He could have chosen anything.

Thankfully, the boy is deeply unimaginative and goes for a bell (?!)

Brawn: 3 Little evidence as to whether would be good in a fight, but judging by his appearance, you'd rather not meet him in a dark alley.

Reindeer Skills: 4 Flawless, except for the fact he removes one of the reindeer's bells as part of the gift – as mentioned above - which must be some sort of safety hazard.

Non-believer conversion rate: 2 Poor. While the boy remains converted throughout his life, his sister slowly stops believing and his parents never believe.

Appearance : 5 Looks the part, because he is the part. Came out of his mother's womb saying, "Ho ho ho".

Brains : 3 Again, naivety and misplaced trust is a problem. Had been running Christmas just fine until his brother Fred comes along, and then entrusts him with too much responsibility.

Brawn: 2 Has a dodgy back, revealed after a fight with Fred.

Reindeer Skills: 5 A professional through-andthrough.

Non-believer Conversion Rate: n/a

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WUWO ISSUE No8

FEATURE COMEDY

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Joe Lycett talks to WUWO wuwomagazine.com

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@whatsupwhatson

By Steven Godwin

20 seconds into my conversation with comedian Joe Lycett I have already figured out he is a salt of the earth guy. It’s nice to meet a man that is content and happy in the moment, a combination that is rare to find - but Joe seems to have discovered it.

Joe lives between London and Birmingham, which is perfect for a man on the road touring the comedy clubs. He is 24 years old, sharp, witty and sounds a touch posh.

So comedy… what’s it all about?

Life is so sad that if you don’t laugh at all of it you’re an idiot. There’s nothing else to do. Life is a confusing maze of nothing and if you laugh at it; which is one of the things unique to us a species. Everything is hilarious in its own way.

What are you up to right now?

The main thing is my Edinburgh show at the Soho theatre in February. Up until that point I am doing a few bits and pieces at the Pleasance Theatre in London and on the international scene in Switzerland.

Have you gigged much in Europe?

I have in Brussels and the Tenerife comedy clubs which is lots of fun. Tenerife was great as they had an amazing water park with the biggest wave machine in the world it was terrifying. In fact the waves go something like 30 feet high.

So how was Edinburgh festival for you? It seems to be the pinnacle of gigs for comedians.

It was lovely really, I was spoilt. I anticipated it was going to be stressful and a nightmare - with reviewers and all that but I didn’t read reviews and I got into the habit of not doing so. From a performer point of view they’re not really for me, they’re for people coming to the show and if they’re bad and it’s a recurring thing then that’s a problem. I have my director with me who looks and listens to the crowd. I often find when I read reviews they tell you what you are and inevitably you become that a little bit. But It was very nice to start selling out (shows) so early on. It was gorgeous.

So you won the charlatan student comedy award.

How long from winning the award did it take to be selling out shows?

All the years start to merge into one. I think it was a year and a half in. I’m 24 now. I think inevitably it’s a combination of things, getting more exposure made it easier. I had an accolade there; I had leverage and could use that to get more gigs. One of the great things I love about comedy, it’s not just one thing you

do, it an accumulation of many things that get you to where you want to be. It’s about people seeing you in different places, you never know who’s in the audience of different gigs and lots of things went in my favour at once. But inevitably the award helped.

How did you begin your career?

I’ve always enjoyed watching comedy on telly and went to watch gigs with friends and saw Tom Stade and he was just phenomenal. It planted the seed of the idea in my head.

What do you feel makes a comedian?

Humbleness. You have to have a degree of humbleness and think you are funny enough to make people laugh on mass. I was quite surprised by this but I usually find comics are some of the loveliest generous pleasant people you are likely to meet. Obviously there are exceptions though.

What’s in your mind for the future? What level would you like to get to?

I don’t really want to do arena but I’d like to do little theatre tours off my own name at some stage - but I still cant quite believe that I’m pissing about for a living; so just the idea of living off it in any way is great. I live a very comfortable life and I don’t really want for much. Comedy pays me well I’m pretty much delighted. So anything on top is bonus. I am fortunate.

I do what I want to do and its not really proper work.

Not enough people get to do that JOE'S RECOMMENDED COMEDIANS Lucy Beaumont Pete Otway Ben Hustwayte Paul Foot Louis C K Tom Stade ‘Joe Lycett is at the Soho Theatre, 6-9 Feb www.sohotheatre.com’

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Meet Nathan Bowen wuwomagazine.com

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@whatsupwhatson

Nathan Bowen is a Street Artist who has featured on BBC Apprentice and won mainstream fame. He joins WUWO to introduce us to his work.

“In order to entertain the public and catch there attention, I produce art which everyone can relate to, it helps me to find common grounds with London's cold cut throat society. As an artist I move with the times, by keeping up to date with what’s new and current”. Nathan Bowen www.artofnathanbowen.com

Look out for Nathan’s Christmas Project As a Christmas street art celebration, Nathan will be putting up floating foam cut outs of Santa and Elf demons high up on building walls. Each cut out will have a few helium balloons attached to them, so it looks like the demons are holding a bunch of balloons and floating with them.

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FEATURE

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Retronaut Presents: Evolution of Lucasfilm Christmas Cards 1977-2010

1996

wuwomagazine.com

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1995

@whatsupwhatson

1999

Here we have a collection of Lucasfilm Christmas cards. With the recent sale of Star Wars for ÂŁ2.5bn to the Walt Disney Company only Mickey Mouse knows if Disney will keep up the Star Wars Christmas card tradition!

2000 2001

1979

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1978 1977

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1982 1981

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2005 2004

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TRENDS

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WUWO ISSUE No8

By Ralph Jones

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Fact

Film

Trend

Website

Grizzly Bear – Shields

Virgins Wanted

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Twitter Trend

Texts From Dog

American Horror Story: Asylum

Grizzly Bear has been making waves with their last three albums and a supporting tour last year with Radiohead (guitarist Johnny Greenwood even named GB his ‘favourite band in the world’).

Their new album is hard to describe, especially in terms of genre; is indie-psych-folk a real thing? Either way it’s possibly the closest description of their music, yet also totally inadequate.

The songs are perfectly arranged and beautifully formed, often building to extraordinary climaxes that sweep you along gently and entirely.

Favourite tracks: Speak in Rounds, What’s Wrong.

A documentary film maker in Australia has been making headlines internationally with his project that aims to auction off the virginities of Alexander and Catarina, each 20 years old.

He has been running an online auction, which currently shows the highest bids to be USD$ 2,000 for Alexander but a whopping USD$ 280,000 for Catarina!

Interestingly Brazil leads the field with the highest number of bidders with a ratio of two thirds of the total bids being from Brazilian bidders. Fortunately (we assume) for Alex, the current highest bid is from a woman, unlike several of the previous bids…

Tilda Swinton leads the cast of this drama with astounding skill.

Mixing emotional drama with chilling, psychological horror, this film details the life of a woman whose teenage son is a disturbed spree-killer.

Oscar-winner Swinton once again delivers a performance that outshines the rest of the cast (through no fault of their own) and holds your attention with ease.

In some ways the film lacked the emotional and psychological insight of the book from which it is adapted, but this is hardly an unusual complaint with regards to adaptations and shouldn’t stop you from seeing this film.

18th October: British National Party leader Nick Griffin once again proved the majority of the country to be correct in their estimations of him by using Twitter to publish the private home address of a gay couple and threatening them.

The famous bigot heard about a recent court case in which a gay couple sued a B&B owner who refused to allow them the room that they had booked because they were gay and she felt it would be ‘facilitating sin’.

After tweeting their address he included the less than subtle threat of “A British Justice team will come up to Huntingdon & give you a bit of drama by way of reminding you that an English couple’s home is their castle.”

His Twitter account has now been suspended.

A lovely little site from writer October Jones that simply consists of text message conversations with his rather foolish bulldog.

Suspending your disbelief for a few seconds will surely result in you laughing away as you read through the whole site, emailing your friends about it and then preordering the book that is now in development.

This humble little Tumblr (the site of choice for contemporary bloggers) has only been around a few months yet it has already earned a book deal and numerous interviews with The Guardian and the like. If you hadn’t heard of it already, expect an email from a colleague/friend telling about it very soon.

This is the second season of the brilliant new show American Horror Story. The first season was released last year and, despite the terrible name of the show, absolutely blew people away, in no small part due to some chilling performances by the likes of Jessica Lange (Tootsie) and Zachary Quinto (Heroes).

If you haven’t seen it before, don’t worry about having to catch up, the second season is a separate storyline to the first, with each one functioning like a short story in a collected works. It’s scary, it’s moving and it will certainly leave an impression on you.

Album

SOCIAL CIVIL WAR Social media in the Syrian civil war is a battle being won by the Free Syrian Army. From rebels using Youtube to build a 'brand' for their brigades, using Facebook to crowd-source funding for the rebellion, using Twitter to broadcast troop movements to relying on Google Maps to stage attacks. While social media played a large part in the Arab Spring, it has been Honed in Syria.

JOSEPH KONY Joseph Kony was one of the most powerful warlords in the 90's. By 2012 his army was down to under 500. In response to his brutal campaign, Invisible Children released a 30 minute video which asked viewers to increase the profile of this war criminal in a naïve yet viral attempt to stop him. Surprisingly, tweeting and liking a video did not lead to his capture and instead lead to further militarisation of an already war-torn state. The campaign ended with the campaign director running naked through San Diego while shouting at traffic.

MCALPINE THREATENS 10,000 TWEETERS Retired Tory politician Lord McAlpine is to sue over 10,000 Tweeters over false allegations of child abuse.

Those with under 500 followers can apologise and pay as little as £5 to charity, while those with over 500 followers such as speaker's wife Sally Bercow and Guardian columnist George Monbiot may face legal action.

App

SUSAN BOYLE PR GAFFE #SUSANALBUMPARTY The Scottish singer's PR team slipped up when they used the hash tag #Susanalbumparty to promote her album launch. Instead of promoting a question and answer session, the Twitterverse quickly picked up on a second more obvious implication of the phrase suggesting a sodomy-themed celebration. The hashtag made it into the top five trending tags world wide.

FEATURE

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How to Blag-it as a Photographer

By Jack Courtez Image by wwarby

Everybody likes to think they are a photographer. The price of a decent camera has come down to the extent that even your granny has a DSLR, but that doesn’t mean they know how to use it.

Part of www.wuwomagazine.com Blag-it series, visit us online for more…

So you want people to think you are handy with a camera but can’t be bothered uploading pretentious pictures of flowers to Facebook. If you are weary of blurry, wonky, headless photos, there are a few basic steps that will instantly improve your snap shot capabilities.

Positioning There is an awkward tendency to stick people or focal points symmetrically in the middle of a shot. For instance, when taking a shot of a subject next to the Eiffel tower, the iron lattice beast is obscured by positioning the person in the centre of the frame. Instead, place the subject off-centre to the left or right by splitting the shot into 3 vertical sections. Align the middle of their face to one of the dividing lines.

Cut the sky The sky is boring, empty and mainly grey in the UK. Despite this people seem determined to allocate half a picture to it with the subject desperately leaning in to make it into the lower half of the picture. Instead, crop the photo as tight to the target as possible.

To flash or not to flash?

People resort to the camera flash too quickly. It should be a last resort for caves, sweaty gigs and night time scenarios where the target is close to the camera. If the target isn’t moving, use a long exposure in low light conditions to maximize light – a tripod or a steadily propped camera here avoids blur. Where flash is needed, avoid red-eye and shiny foreheads by angling the target slightly side-on as opposed to a mugshot approach.

Leave the camera on Most cameras have a standby option that uses nearly no battery. The advantage is that you can point and shoot those spontaneous Kodak moments on the spot instead of fumbling around with settings and the on-switch.

Go trigger happy Unlike old-school film cameras, digital allows you to snap away without concern and delete the pictures that don’t come out well. When taking pictures of people, take several pictures at each opportunity to avoid capturing gurning faces and blinks.

Hold the camera with your body Minimise camera movement by locking your elbow tight to your body when taking a picture. Use both hands to support the camera with your left hand supporting the lens.

Remember these tips on your next night out so even if your memory is blurry, your pictures won’t be.

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FOOD

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WUWO’s menu wuwomagazine.com

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Health Tonics, Edible not Credible There have always been different types of health remedies, be it medicinal or herbal. There’s always a new craze going round that everyone must try. Drinking vinegar cures hiccups, eating faeces cures cancer (yes, that was actually in a newspaper), but what about baby mice wine?

Drinks containing animals are fairly commonplace, such as the tequila worm (fact: not actually suspended in tequila, but in distilled alcohol called Mescal), which has to be eaten to ‘build your strength.’ If you’re raised around food such as fried seahorse, bats on a stick, scorpions on a stick and fertilised eggs, I’m sure you’ll be more than willing to try anything.

However, in the UK we see anything that isn’t ‘normal’ as taboo. Baby mice wine is said to be a traditional Chinese and Korean health tonic and allegedly cures any health issue, from asthma to liver disease. So, for those of you who love a health tonic, baby mice wine could be for you. Some say the wine is used as a last resort, but if it cures anything up to liver disease, why wait? Made by taking two to three day old mice and placing them in a bottle of rice wine, the mice are then left in the liquid for over a year to ferment and then, voilà! Your wine is served. It’s said to taste like “road kill mixed with gasoline,” and the mice must be consumed with the wine in order for the tonic to take full effect.

It doesn’t end there though as seagulls, snakes, geckos and other assorted lizards are being put into rice wine to make medicinal tonics.

Tonics like these have been made for centuries such as ant tonics.

This has been proven to be powerfully anti-inflammatory and useful as a pain killer, plus they allegedly increase life expectancy! Some Chinese citizens of Guangzhou even eat tiger penis to boost sexual performance and stamina. Is it horrendously cruel or the next best thing since penicillin? And does the mouse wine really cure illnesses like the ant tonic, or are you just too drunk to care?

@whatsupwhatson

Cocktail of the Month Wassailing is the traditional Christmas practice of visiting people to offer well wishes and being greeted by a nice mug of wassail. Do you want to know how to make wassail? Of course you do, and it's incredibly easy with this modernised recipe (traditional ones involve lots of straining and pushing cloves into oranges...) to welcome guests with the ultimate Yuletide cocktail. Below makes a gallon of the stuff, because it's a sociable drink to be shared with friends. Serve in tankards and accompany with lots of clinking and hearty cheer etc. Singing of the "Here We Come a-Wassailing" carol optional.

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Curious Diets The Egg Only Diet Fad diets try to make us eat healthily, especially when they say “celebrities lost weight this way.” There are many variations of the egg diet; the most insane consists of eating 9 eggs a day (yes, 9) and only having water or crystal light drink mix.

Nigella Lawson’s husband Charles Saatchi tried this and he did lose four stone in nine months, but his doctor said “It's neck and neck whether Charles keels over or loses weight first.”

The other egg diets incorporate other ingredients, but the egg only diet cuts down on additional thinking about what to have for dinner. All you need are three eggs for each meal. However, eating so many eggs makes your cholesterol rise and can lead to liver and kidney disease.

If that wasn’t bad enough, eating so many eggs leads to constipation, bad breath and belching (unless that’s a normal day for you). The egg only diet doesn’t require exercise, but with only 600-ish calories a day you couldn’t peel your eggs, let alone run.

Dinner Date for a Fiver Winter Wonderland While ice-skating may be out of your price (and physical) range, a good hour wandering around the stalls and enjoying a mug of mulled everything won't set you back too much. If you share a mug.

Hyde Park, 23 November-6 January.........................................................free entry

Genesis Cinema, Mile End With £4 tickets for students every night of the week - as well for adults Monday to Thursday (weekend prices are £6.50) - this swanky, licensed bar is also half price for those who apply for a Genesis student card.

93-95 Mile End Road, Monday to Thursday...........................................all tickets £4,weekends £6.50 adults, £4 students

Chilli-Con-Carne-It Ingredients: (64 ounce) bottle apple juice or cider 1 (32 ounce) bottle cranberry juice cocktail 2 cups orange juice 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice 1 cup sugar 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground allspice 1 teaspoon ground cloves 1 orange, thinly sliced

How to make it 1. Put the first 8 ingredients into a large pot and bring to the boil.

2. Reduce heat , cook, stirring occasionally for 15-20 minutes 3. Add your orange slices and serve immediately.

Image by twoshortplanks

WUWO ISSUE No8

Simple.

It's Christmas and if you've blown all your cash buying misguided accessories, ornaments and trinkets for loved ones, don't let the person you really fancy miss out too. Also, because it's so cold, you can always sack everything off and have a bash at WUWO's ultimate chilli-con-carne at home while you both fervently embrace the radiator/electric heater. As nothing says, “traditional British Christmas” like a warm spicy dish from Mexico – guaranteed you'll be fed up of roasts by the 25th, so thank us.

Asda Butchers Selection Mince Beef........................................................... £1.40 Asda Chilli con Carne mix........................................................................... £0.26 Asda Smart Price Kidney Beans................................................................ £0.27 Asda Smart Price Chopped Tomatoes........................................................ £0.31 Uncle Ben’s Basmati Rice Express Rice or Asda Basmati Rice............ £1 TOTAL................................................................................................ £3.24 1. Brown your mince in a pan, no need to add oil.

2. Once the meat is browned, pour the Chilli con Carne mix over the meat and stir it in. Then pour in around 250ml of water, read the instructions on the packet as it may vary.

3. Drain your kidney beans and add those to the pan with the chopped tomatoes, straight from the can.

4. Leave the pan to simmer and start on your rice. Depending on which rice you have chosen, if you have Uncle Ben’s express rice all you need to do is pop it in the microwave and it should be done within 2 minutes depending on the wattage of your microwave. If you chose Asda basmati rice, fill a pan with cold water, rinse your rice and pop it in, wait until the water boils and then simmer for 10-12 minutes.

5. Drain and serve!

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TRAVEL

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JAPAN, IT’S COMPLICATED Richard Galbraith

I'm sat here in a chain restaurant called 'Joyfull,' it's the Japanese equivalent to the Little Chef except you can still smoke inside and instead of having an Olympic breakfast you’re likely to get a burger without a bun in some local sauce and a side of sticky rice.

This is the Japanese / American diner experience, and it’s just a little odd, even more so now that the Christmas trees have come out and plastic snowmen sit on the window shelves. It’s in Nakatsu, on the southern island of Kyushu, a fairly normal town by Japanese standards and where I have called home now for the last 6 months.

It's got a little castle, train station, a small shopping centre which is prepping for Christmas too, a medium sized mall and a couple of onsen baths (hot springs), which incidentally I'm not allowed to enter, not because I'm 'gaijin' or an 'outsider' but because I have tattoos, and therefore, I'm Yakuza.

Okay, so I might not be immediately put on the same pecking order as one of the most successful organised crime gangs

in the world, but tattoos are still pretty frowned upon, and that's the thing about Japan, it's the mix.

It's the juxtaposition that it has within itself, with its culture and history, that makes it so intriguing and so tough to explain. 150 years ago, Japan was a closed nation under feudal rule by a hereditary emperor with a stratified class system that saw you born into a job and where the Samurai warrior class kept you in check. Since, it has developed into one of the most technologically advanced cultures in the world, alongside being one of the most successful economies of the last century. It's the speed of this change, though, that has made Japan so confusing, so weird and so undoubtedly fascinating.

The country has been going through a cultural crisis since its

borders were prized open back in the mid 1800's and was ‘forced’ to change. Accept and conform to Western hegemony? Or stick with Japanese traditions of Wabi Sabi, Bushido and other aesthetic and philosophical modes? Well, that's been the question and challenge over the last 100 years or so and continues to be a bit of a problem, making for all sorts of weird and wonderful experiences, especially now, as the synonymous Cokea-cola Santa starts springing up everywhere.

So, for instance, I arrive in Japan back in the summer, I’m in central Nagoya and I’ve got a recommendation of a good pub called ‘Keg’ that serves over 10 locally brewed Japanese craft beers and I’m raring to go. I’m there within 30 minutes and sitting with a pint of the good stuff, if there’s one thing the Japanese are fantastic at, it’s imitation, and their beer is doing very well. I manage to squeeze in a few pints before starting to talk to a couple of American lads, one ex-marine one uni graduate both out here teaching. Undoubtedly you know how this sort of night proceeds, so I’ll skip the trivial rounds of sake bombs – a shot glass of sake balanced on two chopsticks on top of a pint of beer, slam the table until the shot drops through and down the lot – and other banal drinking details. Roughly 10 hours later, it’s 7am and I’m looking for the local castle, I bump into another American who calls me a hipster and buys me a beer from the adjacent Seven Eleven. After a quick chat it turns out he knows where the castle is and, despite

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being crossed eyed, walking with a limp and having lost his iPhone, he is prepared to take me there.

We get there and sure enough, it’s closed until 10am, he decides to go to sleep on a small grass verge, I smoke cigarettes and drink cans of cheep beer until the place opens.

If you go to a castle, being British, you expect it to be pretty old, right?

Well, like I was saying, Japan’s culture and history is a weird mix. See, during WWII, the Allies firebombed all the major cities of Japan into dust, so when you see a Japanese castle, the likelihood is that it was actually built in the 50’s or 60’s. Sure, it existed before then for hundreds of years, but post WWII, everything had to be rebuilt.

I have a look around before heading to the top for the view of the city, I get a nudge from an old Japanese man, ‘Ah, American?’ he asks, no I say, I’m from England, near Manchester, ‘Wow! I love The Beatles! Number one band! Let me give you tour of our castle!’ Now, at this point I’m just off the back of a 10 hour drink and 24 hours travelling immediately before, I’m starting to hallucinate mildly, but I figure he means well. He shows me around, asks for his picture taken with me, takes my email address (I still receive weekly updates on his random travelling six months later) and I say I have to go and meet my friend, he fell asleep at the entrance and I’m not sure if he’s okay, “Ah, yes! I see him! He’s still there!”

surrounding me here to keep me occupied and happy.

Then, of course, there’s plenty I’ve not yet explored to keep me occupied, and say you’re coming here too, where to explore exactly? If you’re in Tokyo, start in Shinjuku at a tiny hole-in-thewall drinking hole called ‘Ace Bar,’ good beer, all sorts of weird and wonderful characters and friendly reception from an owner who speaks English. If you’re in Kyoto, Tadg’s Irish bar has an excellent range of Japanese craft beers and the magnificent, gregarious Irish owner; Tadg and he’s partial to a drop of the stuff himself and full of great info and stories. Osaka? Well, Has to be Sam & Dave’s Club, aside from the increasingly enforced and utterly bizarre ‘no dancing after midnight’ law across Japan as a whole, Sam and Dave’s is a perfect starting point for the uninvited, loads of locals as well as gaijin like you and me to get mixed up with. And then of course, if you’re ever in my neck of the woods, on Kyushu, head over to Beppu, get yourself a private onsen, a bottle of local Shochu, and kick back for a couple of hours feeling very Zen.

Japan's answer to Father Xmas The guy I befriended for directions is a dead weight now, unable to wake him up but being sure he was still breathing, I write him a note on the back of a receipt and put it in his hand, leaving him to it. By this point, he’d been asleep on the grass verge just outside a major tourist attraction for close to 3 hours, and not a single soul had disturbed him, and that my friends, is so ‘very’ Japanese.

What I’m trying to convey here, is that Japan’s not ‘normal’ by our western standards but everywhere you look, because of the western influence on their culture, there’s a little reminder of home, and now, at Christmas this is especially evident. Japan isn’t a Catholic nation, Shinto is the nation religion and almost 80% of people have some Buddhist leanings, but the

western influence is most obvious when it comes to Christmas. The trees are out, the carols are blared through mall speaker systems and weird ‘Engrish’ phrases are iced onto gingerbread men, I grabbed one the other day that simply read: ‘Beauty Santa Christmas’.

Whilst Christmas day itself isn’t a national holiday, there is always one on the Emperors birthday, the current Emperor Akihito’s birthday is on December 23rd, so everyone gets the day off then, but it’s nothing to do with good old JC. This Christmas will be the first I’ll have spent away from my family, and despite knowing I’ll miss the presents, over eating, over drinking and generally being incredibly lazy, there’ll be just enough abstract, weird, wonderful and often hilarious stuff

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TOP SPOTS Tokyo Booze: Ace bar, Shinjuku Met loads of weird locals to Tokyo here, great place to start a night out

Tourism: Senso-ji temple, Asakusa Very famous and awesome looking temple, go at night

Kyoto Booze: Tadgs pub Sat up drinking craft beer and tequila with the Irish owner

Tourism: Golden pavilion

Extremely beautiful destination, old residence of the Emperor

Osaka Booze: Sam & Daves Been a few times, always a large night out, lots of booze and good fun

Tourism: USA Town

Very bright and hip area of the city full of young people of all sorts of subcultures

Nagoya Booze: Keg pub Great beer and good mix of gaijin and locals

Tourism: Nagoya Castle

Good example of a Japanese castle

Hiroshima Tourism: Peace park Memorial for 70,000 who died in the nuclear bombing of the city, very powerful museum

Tourism: Miyajima

Island dedicated to Shinto worship, the indigenous religion of Japan, beautiful temples and shrines

Beppu Booze & tourism: Onsen It’s an ‘onsen’ city so there’s countless amounts you can chose to visit, get a private one if you want a drink whilst relaxing and take in your own booze.

WUWO ISSUE No8

DIY

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WUWO ISSUE No8

D. I. Y HOST YOUR OWN PARTY wuwomagazine.com

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It's the party season and you can stick your crudités up your champers, thanks. Sure, if you've got the cash then crack open the Moet. For everyone else - rejoice, sound the Poundland kazoo and tip your wilted hats to WUWO’s guide to throwing a party for pretty much no money.

Nobody will ever know…

THE HOST •

•

If you live in a questionable flat nestled on the end of Assault Street, none of this matters provided your guests are constantly amazed by your skills. Think Mary Poppins/ Derren Brown, but drunk.

Greet everyone with eyebrows raised and a high-pitched voice in order to distract from dodgy flat/concerning surroundings.

Whisk them into the kitchen and dole out punch (see below: Alcohol) regardless of whether they've brought wine (see below: Alcohol). They don't have to drink it and, considering the ingredients (see below: Alcohol), this is probably a good thing, but it's all about how host-y you appear.

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Constantly offer to top people up or, better still, clock what they're drinking and top them up before they've thought to ask.

If they’re drunk they won’t notice the ants.

Introduce everyone to everyone and never let anyone sit on their own. They’ll start looking around and may notice the ants.

Have some games in the back of your mind. The chances are you'll never need to use them because everyone will be so relaxed by your aforementioned “skills” that whipping out Cluedo would only ruin the flow. In the event of some awkwardness, or someone yelling, "LET'S PLAY A DRINKING GAME!", the host/ess should always come up with and orchestrate the best option. Ring of fire. Twister. Most Likely To. I Have Never.

Never Have I Ever. Have I Never Ever? Etc. NB: Nobody likes a host/ess who forces games on people.

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Pound-land, Pound-world, Pound-emporium, Pound-kingdom, Pound-place. You don't want to appear like you've made too much effort everyone likes a nonchalant decorator.

Invest in some tea lights for the kitchen.

Usually if you live in a hell-hole the kitchen is (no matter how hard you bleach and scrub) very grim. Place tea lights on shelves, cupboards, etc. to hide any rogue infestations but not in areas that encourage guests to set themselves on fire. It usually makes everyone look outstandingly attractive too which is a bonus. Unless of course, they are aflame.

•

For Christmas parties, the tackier the better.

Silver bunting, cheap mistletoe and (again) Tesco value fairy-lights will do the trick. If you must have a Christmas tree, buy one of those hideous pink ones. If someone throws up on it, nobody will notice. plit it between your house mates and you've got S yourself a party. If you live on your own, you’ve still got a party.

OVERALL COST: £7

THEMES •

Ensure everyone brings a bottle. Say this three times on the Facebook Event Thing with underlining, bold lettering and CAPITALS. Make two batches of horrifically cheap punch. The first should be strong enough that nobody realises the second consists of water and whatever other liquid is available in the kitchen (avoid milk).

Ingredients for the punch: Tesco value vodka, Tesco value gin and Tesco value juice. The second batch is purely juice-based. Nobody will question it, and you can utilise the leftover alcohol to ensure you have a good time.

If you have terrible cartons of Tesco Value red wine hanging around the house (and if you don’t, you’re missing out), pour them into the empty posh bottles people have brought and bring them out an odd intervals shouting, “WAYYYY!” so everyone believes you have a secret, expensive wine stash.

OVERALL COST: £16.19*

THE DECORATION

OVERALL COST: FREE

THE ALCOHOL •

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* Figure may change with inflation, hyperinflation, 3 am drunk online purchases of inflatables, etc.)

Some go mental with the costumes and some don't. The best themes can be interpreted widely so stick to the old favourites: tube stations, what you want to be when you grow up and favourite film characters always work well. That way someone can come donned in a papier mache reconstruction of London Bridge or, alternatively, wear a name-tag that reads Rebecca and wield a recorder/flute (Tooting Bec).

You'll be able to use what you have, and if you can't... think of another theme. It’s your party.

OVERALL COST: FREE

Disclaimer: As a great man/my house mate once said, "A party either has food or alcohol... never both". I think I made this quote up, but it should be taken into account. Make sure the party starts at 9 pm so people will already have eaten and there'll be no concern over the lack of nibbles.

WUWO ISSUE No8

FEATURE

38

EVERY CITY NEEDS ITS SUPERHEROES. UNFORTUNATELY FOR LONDON, IT HAS THESE GUYS...

NEW TO WUWOÂ MAGAZINE AND NO-ONE CAN HELP...

To celebrate the final season of Breaking Bad WUWO is offering 2 boxsets of the series session 1-4 to four lucky winners!

If you haven't heard of the show before, AMC's Breaking Bad is critically acclaimed, internationally loved and very nearly over. The series recently finished the first half of its fifth and final season and everything points towards the last installment (which will be with us next year) becoming the most anticipated series finale ever made and for all you Breaking Bad virgins, now is your best opportunity to catch up on the roughly 36 hours of episodes already released before the end of it all next summer.

But 36 hours is quite a lot of free time to be giving up for a TV show, so why should you?

Here's why.

Breaking Bad might be the best and least likely show to ever make it past the pitching stage and into production. This is a series about high school chemistry teacher Walter White (played masterfully

by Bryan Cranston, of Malcolm in the Middle fame), who is struggling to make ends meet supporting his pregnant wife and disabled, teenage son on his meagre earnings. The inciting incident of the first episode arrives when he is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, despite never have smoked a day in his life. Pushed to his limits by his doomful fate and the stifling domesticity of his home life, he turns to 'cooking' crystal methamphetamine using his knowledge of chemistry in

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SCAN TO WATCH AN EPISODE

39

order to amass a safety net of cash to leave behind for his family when he dies.

From the first season the show has gone from strength to strength, adeptly walking the lines between intense drama and extraordinarily dark comedy, all while constantly pushing its characters to their limits and forcing them to evolve through perfectly plotted character progressions.

With every season Gilligan has upped the ante, giving us more tension, more conflict, more everything but for a show that keeps consistently delivering, how on earth do you bring it to an end?

Here at WUWO... we have no idea but one thing you can always be sure of with Breaking Bad is that it will be awesome.

For your chance to win a boxset... email competition@wuwomagazine.com with Breaking Bad in the title.