Run Riot is a listing of cultural happenings in and around london.
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I had just returned from Transalvania country, where I had successfully eluded the Count whilst making a film with some Romanian firemen (but that's another story). In the interim I had managed to slip in a final edit on the run-riot chess-boxing piece and now here was my carrot to finish the job. A night of mad mayhem and merriment courtesy of my continued involvement in this canary in the mining shafts of a movement.
Faceless: Chasing the Data Shadow
Written by Manu Luksch, Mukul Patel
Stranger than fiction
Remote-controlled UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) scan the city for anti-social behaviour. Talking cameras scold people for littering the streets (in children’s voices). Biometric data is extracted from CCTV images to identify pedestrians by their face or gait. A housing project’s surveillance cameras stream images onto the local cable channel, enabling the community to monitor itself.
Step back nine decades to a time when nightlife was alluringly illicit. Forget oversized tee shirts and spandex leggings – dinner jackets and luxurious gowns beaded to within an inch of their thread count were the only club wear of choice. Long evenings were spent soaking up dazzling chorus girls and blue comics or, across the Atlantic, trying to find the savviest speakeasy bulging with liquor while dodging the police. Welcome to the golden era of cabaret.
After the Labour disaster, England deserved a Red Victory. No matter if it didn’t happen on the shore of Albion – it happened in Russia, no less. Well done Manchester, I’m sure it was a great game. Sorry but I wasn’t there with my nose glued to a TV screen. Instead of rejoicing in red, I was slumped in the deep black of Lou Reed’s Berlin.
Those pair of jeans were still dirty with dust, beer, sweat and everything you can soil your jeans with during the Camden Crawl. They had spent the last few weeks shoved at the bottom of the laundry bag, forsaken and forgotten. So when it came to prepare myself for the Stag and Dagger, that is the newly born Shoreditch answer to the Crawl, I proudly donned them and swaggered out of my den.
It’s dressing up time this coming bank holiday. Don’t waste it on a bender. Instead check out the London Fashion and Film Festival Weekender (24-25 May). This 2 day event is jammed packed with a heady cocktail of films, fashion and general frolicking, ending on a truly high note with ‘The White Coffin Club Night’ party. Vintage Secrets co-founder Naomi Thompson talks to Curator Claire Geddie from the BFI who unveils an insight to the debauchery ahead.
Tomas Brickhill talks to Eleanor and Khwaja, two of the co-founders of Passing Clouds – a ‘venue’ not just known for it’s Afro Beat and World music scene, but also for leading an exciting wave that's challenging the mainstream.
DJ, Club Promoter and Blogger, Todd Hart talks about the rise of Afro Beat in London’s savvy party scene.
Pointing out a trend is a bit like saying a particular cloud looks like a hedgehog. You hope that the trend you see actually looks like a trend to others. But maybe you just want to see a hedgehog anyway.
Just the other day, Patrick Hussey met with Flo from Florence and the Machine, along with her pal, Mairead from the Queens of Noize to discover more about this live wire who’s set to stir our spirits during this summer of love.
I am sitting in a Shoreditch pub jacked up to near quivering on Lemsip but not just any old Lemsip. It’s the powder kind that comes in little tubes and tastes like hospital floors. I keep pouring the fizzy dust into my mouth.
