Recently we have heard alot of grumbling about London and have emitted the odd one ourselves. Extortionate parking fines, unpleasant shop-floor staff, an inexperienced mayor, the general rising cost of living; as one collleague, recently returned from a job in Ibiza, pointed out: “London is a service provider, it’s a business like any other and trips abroad make me wonder am I really getting my money’s worth..?”
Well a couple recent forays into the Big Smoke made us feel we should highlight a few elements that we think should be given knighthoods or sainthoods or ‘national treasure’ status at the very least:
Boudicca- We attended the closing screening of the Fashion in Film Festival at Sketch called ‘Co-Conspirators’, a series of short films commissioned from various artists/designers tackling the overall theme of ‘If Looks Could Kill’. Boudicca’s contribution was so gobsmackling magnificent that we ended up staying for five run-throughs of the cycle just to catch another glimpse of their work. Entitled ‘The Library Kills’ its simply a gallery of stills taken from their personal image archive and set to music. Not very complicated but the intensity of the piece had us goose-bumped so badly we looked like a couple nervous chickens in an abattoir. What Boudicca reaches for in their work should not only be celebrated or canonised but given its own postcode and council tax. They are a fervent and shaming reminder of what UK fashion is capable of. The film will soon be available for general view in the news section of their site:
TimeOut- The majority of culture magazines on the market leave you feeling strangely bereft, cleverly designed to germinate a seed of self-loathing into a giant redwood of credit card debt. You quietly berate fate for not providing you with a favela birth so you could pimp and drug-deal your way to Baille Funk superstardom, or send your father a resentful email for not conceiving you with his sister in a Wichitaw trailer park so Harmony Korine could propel you to 21st Century P.T.Barnum infamy. TimeOut is one of those few bizarrely generous magazines that show up to your party with more booze than they drink. They do there job so well that its often more fun to stay home and read their reviews than book a ticket. We even have a friend who regularly turns down an invitation to go out on a Wednesday or Thursday night so he can stay home and read TimeOut (!?). Though a magazine’s success is inevitably down to a team it’s only since Gordon Thompson’s appointment as editor in 2004 that TimeOut seems to have graduated from a weekly listings publication to a deeply personal London almanac capable of eliciting frightening levels of enthusiasm for its comprehensive coverage of the city and (most remarkably) its inhabitants.
The Golden Heart/Sandra Esquilant- There could be no more appropriate name for the social fulcrum that is Sandra Esquilant’s pub than the Golden Heart. We have been frequenting this drinking hole cum East End sunset patio for seven years and have gradually become friends with its beautiful matron. Having not been there recently we strolled past on Thursday night and were powerless moths to its compulsive flame. A bright young fashion pack was in residence with Richard Nicholl, Dead Or Alive frontman Pete Burns was wandering around in ragged tattoed drag and artists of varying degree of fame or infamy burbled over there bitter while the stern, generous and elegant figure of Sandra presided over it all with all the aplomb of a family barbecue; clearing glasses, settling disputes, smacking the odd punter round the head as though twisting the ear of an upstart pupil. If the sunlit corner of The Golden Heart were to sink into the ground of a given night it would decimate the art and fashion worlds (as the Marchionness did the club world in 1989) and yet unlike a host of London bars where you can watch every has-been, was-not and wont-be strut their cocaine-addled stuff, loudly discussing their latest wordwide success the Heart somehow manages to ban ego and promote humility. The very same punters will go to another bar and behave like ego-maniacal shrews (ourselves included) but Sandra’s pragmatic East End character is so dominant that a passing tourist unfamiliar with London glitteratti would be completely oblivious to the cultural titans (Hirst, Emin, Chapman & co…) that rank among her admirers. All they would see is a quiet heavingly popular pub and an elegant bustling woman clearing glasses and barking the odd reprimand with her bifocals perched at the tip of her nose.
Tate Modern- Yesterday a friend invited us to join him at the Tate for breakfast. Nana couldnt make it but I joined him on the high terrace overlooking the river. As I approached across the Millenium Bridge the graffitti commissions were visible decorating the riverside wall. Gigantic, smile-making swathes of colour and form that can’t help but tickle the ‘fuck-the-system-man’ gene of even the most hardened anti-tag hum-bugger. I found some 8-year old interior monologuer had brain-jacked my inner-voice to repeat ‘that’s SOOO cool’ again and again ad nauseum as I crossed (and he cackled maniacly at the site of the 8ft flaccid penis dangling from the giant yellow man by Os Gemeos, screened from the river by some trees, this is Britain after all). After coffee on the rooftop terrace we strolled round the colossal Street&Studio: An Urban History of Photography exhibition. We didn’t leave until after five. Whatever detractors may say about Tate’s popularisation of art this institution has done more to invigorate, exhilarate and engage than possibly any other comparable gallery in the world. And if being excited by this makes me a ‘them’ instead of an ‘us’ then give me the damn keys and let me out of this ivory tower.