Run Riot is a listing of cultural happenings in and around london.
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*bloggers note - This adventure takes place halfway through the Passing Clouds feature (between 'Doesn't time fly?' and 'A week later...') in case anyone is keeping track.
Adventures across London Fields
Fashion in Film Festival
Naomi Thompson takes a peep at what’s to come from the Fashion in Film Festival that hits London from 10-31 May. Planning the perfect crime? Don’t forget to look the part.…..Somewhere along the line it may pay dividends.
Chelsea Hotel Manhattan
Patrick Hussey reviews Joe Ambrose’s book on New York’s Chelsea Hotel, the first factual book on the building featuring conversations with William Burroughs, Paul Bowles, Gerard Malanga, Victor Bockris among others.
A druggie, a knickerless slapper, a righteous Christian-type clarinet player and a common as muck TV show host wannabe (“oi, who’re you callin’ common?! I’m middle class!)… This is no average school detention - prepare yourself for just over an hour of cross-dressing, zombie stalking, gender changing, table-dancing, short-skirted, cannibalistic mayhem with a quirky soundtrack and dance routines to boot. This is Fame meets Baz Luhrmann with a hint of Queen, a dash of the common people and a slap in the face with all things weird!
Rather fed up with the whole boring prospect of turning 30 (which incidentally I have on good authority is the new 21), I decided to change the focus of the whole sorry mess by having an extended celebration spanning a little over a week. Having already racked up an impressive 3 hangovers, splitting up with my girlfriend, and working on a straight 8 film competition entry with awesome Big Red Button, I really felt like I was hitting the ground running as on the eve of my actual birthday a week ago I trundled off to the Legends of Zimbabwe Gig at the Stratford Rex.
Just when I hate London, when I see it as a focus less nowhere this city offers something. It was the B-Club that gave London it's chance last week, an event that to begin with I felt was an aimless (perhaps heartless is the word) night attended by fashionista shells, those vanilla souls in hipster disguise. It wasn't actually and because of this unusual night I got a treat. London showed me one of its hidden places, a jewel normally swept back in its grey folds...the Temple Room of the Andaz hotel.
Word up! New gallery opening at 119 Bethnal Green Road (top of Brick Lane). It's called Austin, it is very great. It is run by the founder of artkandy.co.uk, an online new British art-dealer. Austin will have regular exhibitions of both new work from around the UK and working international artists. Plus parties, installations, video nights and no doubt more! The possibilities are endless ... keep your keen eyes open, kids!
The Future of ‘68
Giorgia Orlandi meets festival curator Gareth Evans to talk about the new major season starting this April All Power To The Imagination! 1968 And It’s Legacies.
In an ideal world elections and sex are matters of choice. Not so in Russia, where the recent presidential election resembled a coronation with a subsequent plebiscite rather than a democratic poll. As expected, Putin's anointed heir, Dmitry Medvedev, won a landslide victory – a story I am sure you've heard plenty of times in recent weeks.
Two beautiful things happened this Saturday night at the 'Beyond the Valley of the Dolls' party at the Whitechapel. The second involved a redhead, the first involved a lift. Yes, for the moment, let us discuss lifts.
Previously in my journalistic careen I have only had cause to mention lifts once. I was going to write a music piece for some mag and pitched the idea with this tag line
‘Jamie Cullum and lifts are living proof of re-incarnation because without doubt, at some point in history, he was one.’
