The 1-2-3-4 Shoreditch Festival

Scenesters, cheapskates, hark! For some reason there are more festivals in London this summer than there are chalky clods of pigeon shit. Which is all good n' all, but ultimately leaves you with either an empty wallet or a sense of having 'missed out' on something. Want a festival without having to tackle these quandaries?

The '1-2-3-4 Shoreditch' festival will debut in east London this Sunday 5th of August, pitching tent FREE four-fold in Shoreditch Park.

Fun will run from midday to 9pm. Here's the line-up:

MySpace Main Stage
Special Guest Headline TBA
The Paddingtons
Shy Child
The Whip
The Bishops
Man Like Me
Ali Love (Acoustic)
Neils Children
Florence and the Machine
Lightspeed Champion
Littl'ans
Christine
The Mighty Roars
The Idle Lovers
Underground Railroad
Hosted by Queens of Noize


Sensitive Youth/Pix Magazine Stage
Selfish C*nt
Twisted Charm
Bono Must Die
Blondelle
Bolt Action Five
Tiger Force
Forty Five
Lost Penguin
Trafalgar
Hatcham Social
Talk Taxis
Ratty Rat Rat
Pull In Emergency
The Daze
Methodist Centre
No Picasso
Velofax
Lion Club
The Fear


Weekender Records Stage
Dogs
The Lea Shores
Look See Proof
The Runners
The Indelicates
Kingsize
People's Revolutionary Choir
The Puzzle
Subliminal Girls
The Rocks
The Dash


Accelerated Youth Dance Stage
Gucci Soundsystem
Autokratz (Kitsune) (Live)
Ulterior (Live)
Hannah Holland & Mikki Most (Trailer Trash)
Whitey (DJ)
Ben Trucker
The Infadels (DJ)
Errorplains (Live)
The Lovely Jonjo (DJ)
Sonic Mclusky (DJ)
Joe and Will Ask (Live)
Mean Eyed Girl
Lasse (The Rakes) (DJ Set)
Disastronaut
Techno Peasants
Party Shank
Flash Louis/Lazy Guns
The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove
Pinky Brown

Festival organiser Lewis Rainsbury had this to say:

"If you like water, and you like cream, THIS IS THE FESTIVAL FOR YOU!"

Tasty.

Sites:
http://www.myspace.com/1234records
http://www.the1234.co.uk/

[via Drowned in Sound]

St Pancras regains the Gothic glamour

It’s been an awfully long time since British rail travel has been what you’d call alluring. Sleazy, filthy, cramped – maybe. But sophisticated, romantic, with a dash of Agatha Christie, a sparkle of Trevor Howard, finished off with an eccentric sprinkle of John Betjeman? Any relationship between the words “British trains” and “glamour” is long estranged.

But then there is St Pancras. I’d forgotten what it was like. As long as I’ve been alive the station’s famously phantasmagoric architecture has been veiled, cobwebbed, caked in soot and neglect. George Gilbert Scott’s gargantuan Midland Hotel out front has been derelict since I was in short trousers, haunting the Euston Road with its Gormenghast gloom and purposeless air. The hotel and the station werevictoriously snatched from British Rail’s demolition ball in the 1960s with the help of that great railway enthusiast Betjeman (unlike Euston down the road), but, for decades since, that victory has turned out to be a pyrrhic one.

Read the full article the Times here.

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The Chap and Hendrick's Olympics

Since its inception, The Chap magazine has tirelessly dedicated itself to the preservation of the proper English gentleman. To this lot, an umbrella, a pipe and a dry martini constitute life's true essentials. It's no surprise then that their annual Olympics have little to do with lycra, personal bests or, indeed, any real sport. Instead, expect a sea of tweed, the odd three-legged limbo contest and possibly a spot of competitive gin-and-tonic making. Decorative facial hair is strongly encouraged, but not essential.

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IHT London Travel Blog

Welcome to our world — and an invaluable travel resource! Globespotters is an online resource where IHT reporters and editors (and readers too) share up-to-the-minute tips and recommendations about the cities where we live and visit. We're jumping in with 6 of the world's great cities — London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Hong Kong and Bangkok, but plan to expand quickly.
Here's how it works: Just find the picture of the city that interests you on our main page and the information flows. For each city there are two resources: First, if you click on "Travel Basics", you'll find current information about things like transport from the airport, hot restaurant suggestions, advice on taxis, cell phones, internet connectivity and tipping. Second, you can click on the city "blog" page, which provides entries about events occuring right now: what foods are in season, a new museum opening, a strike this week, a quirky walk if you have an hour free, where to buy the ultimate memento (here in Rome that would be a golf ball that is also a Vatican souvenier). So join us, we all have lots to share!

Elisabeth Rosenthal, reporter IHT, Rome

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Julie Nord @ Houldsworth Gallery

JULIE NORD
Afternoon at the Fringe
22 June - 22 July 2007

Houldsworth Gallery is delighted to present Danish artist Julie Nord’s first UK solo exhibition Afternoon at the Fringe from 22 June to 21 July. Since completing her education at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2001 Nord has received tremendous national and international success with recent exhibitions at AroS-Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark 21C Museum, Kentucky, Malmö Kunsthal, Creative Center, Shanghai and Singapore Art Museum to name but a few.

Julie Nord’s ink drawings and watercolours have achieved critical significance due to their exploration of a surreal universe. These scenes appear familiar to us through our recollection of childhood literature, a land of fairytales and fantasy, and yet they are darkly resurrected from this period of innocence – appearing almost apocalyptic in their kitsch-gothic reproduction. Nord’s interpretative works create a space between the unquestioning innocence of youth and the cynical awareness that develops from maturity. Still the works remain inherently fictional due to Nord’s play on proportion and caricature style. The viewer is lured into a false sense of security then shocked by the newly sinister scene. The effect is one of entrapment – simultaneously captivating and disturbing. Nord’s drawings conjure a nostalgic past poisoned by the unsettling reality awoken to in adulthood.

Julie Nord has enjoyed global success with major group projects including Through the Rabbit Hole: Sleights of Scale and Flights of Fancy at 21C Museum, Kentucky; Girlpower & Boyhood at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; MALM 2 at Malmö Kunsthal, Sweden; Fiction@Love: Forever Young Land at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai; Ultra New Vision of Contemporary Art at the Singapore Art Museum and Fairy Tales Forever at AroS-Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark. Solo shows include Elsewhere at Mogadishni; The Cycle at la Caixa Foundation, Spain and From Wonderland with Love at AroS-Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark.

Resources:

Dazed Digital

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