London funkster soul band Jungle launch debut album
As one of the most eagerly received yet enigmatic bands to appear in 2013 it is not surprising that Jungle decided to host the launch party of their debut album at a secret location. On Monday 14th July I, along with a select group of other lucky ticket holders, made...
Lily Allen on her return to the mad, mad World of Pop
High-quality braided hair extensions are scattered on the floor of Lily Allen's suite in New York's Carlyle Hotel, and there's a bottle of Moët on ice monogrammed "L.A." "I assume they thought they were sending it up to Lily Aldridge's room," Allen says. Actually she...
Pizza Union review – Pizza served tasty, cheap, fast and fun in the heart of Spitalfields
For many of us, food has always been wrapped up with a healthy dose of nostalgia. I like to think that we all believe our Dad’s roast potatoes have no equal, our Nan makes the best shortbread, and our friend’s mum really can’t do scrambled eggs just the way we like...
Indi.go at Rich Mix review – Brave the menu and leave happy
We’re sitting amidst the ruins of three curries, two types of naan and a surplus of pilau rice, exhausted from the effort of eating. It’s hot, and the collective moans and howls of Spain v. Netherlands are drifting in from the adjoining complex. [gallery link="file"...
Marina Abramovic 512 hours at the Serpentine – The artist should not be present
I have always viewed Marina Abramovic as experimenter first, artist second. The best of her work creates experimental conditions where she has at times revealed the shocking choices and nature of her participants. In Rhythym 0 she stood motionless in a gallery...
The Golden Dream – Interview with Diego Quemada-Diez on his debut feature
Debuting feature filmmaker Diego Quemada-Diez tells us, “I just had to express the great suffering of these many human beings.” If the lens of the camera can be a window onto the world, enabling film to serve as a socially relevant art form that humanises and...
Boqueria Market Battersea – The pleasures of Catalonian tapas
Some meals leave more of an impression on you than others. I’ve dined in restaurants where I’d forgotten my meal before the bill even rocked up. Others leave behind a neutral blur, a legacy of satisfaction but little else. [gallery royalslider="1"...
Stags, Hens & Bunnies – A Blackpool Story by Dougie Wallace
Blackpool has many faces as anyone who has visited there will discover. On the beach it can be all ice-cream and sandcastles but a stone’s throw away in the bars and clubs a different world is revealed. ...
Dram and Smoke – Scottish themed pop-up restaurant in a working London steelyard
Vauxhall of a Sunday afternoon can be a pretty frantic affair. Pounding bass-lines from beneath train-line-arches around the ungainly roundabout announce weekend-long club nights not due to end anytime soon. Party casualties spill on to the streets and drearily assess...
Continental Obscura – Images of America from rock photographer Ryan Russell
After living all 32 years of my life in Birmingham, Alabama, I decided to move to Bellingham, Washington in the summer of 2013. As I told family and friends I was moving, the one thing they said every time was, “Wow that’s a big change.” I guess they were stating the...
Egyptian Psychedelia – Fantastical Fashion Story by Lelen Ruete
Iconic images from Egypt's past and present collide and transmute in this colour-saturated fantastical fashion story from photographer Lelen Ruete and her team. Photos: Lelen Ruete –...
The Girl Who Talked to Dolphins – A BBC film about one revolutionary experiment
BBC Four is set to journey back to the 1960s and uncover the story of a remarkable experiment that helped to define the 1960s as the decade of big ideas. Scientist John Lilly had the revolutionary idea “to create a bi-species society where humans would not only...
Blues, Booze and Barbeques – Big Easy restaurant opens in Covent Garden
I have fond memories of sitting in front of a stage on a verdant grass lawn in Wyoming, working my way through a seemingly unending heap of cumin-spiced ribs, the sound of loping twelve-bar blues reverberating from a nearby stage. The blues festival was always a...
Super-realist artist Richard Maurovic at the Saatchi Gallery – Vivid Australian Narrative
Adelaide artist Richard Maurovic's career has taken a dramatic international upswing. The brutalistic industrial and urban vistas favored by the South Australian painter have caught the eye of some of Australia's corporate expatriates and, suddenly, Maurovic is being...
Doug Fishbone’s Booze Cruise – Journey into the inner-workings of London’s psyche
A-Hoy Captain Doug Fishbone (my adopted long-lost brother) and beautifully self-titled ‘conceptual stand-up artist’! Undoubtedly an important art maverick on the International scene we see him reignite the Doug Fishbone's Booze Cruise this month in London. [gallery...