Week 25

Shoobidoobeedoowatwaa,
Just made 'spelling and grammar' freak out. Computers don't understand scatting unfortunately.
So I caught up with an old friend the other day and we were talking about Guy Fawkes night and how great fireworks are and have decided that there should be a big warehouse in every major city, an absolutely massive one, where you can go to whenever you're in a bad mood and watch incredible firework displays. How great would that be?
Bad day at work? Girlfriend just got off with your dad? Feeling fat? Don't trouble your noggen, just jump on the bus and head to xxxx and watch fireworks for 20 minutes. Pretty sure you'd feel great and it'd be much cheaper than Lexapro/retail therapy/cocaine.
Someone please become Minister of Health just to do this.



This is what 300 origami boats with toothpick flags look like. If you should be lucky enough to find one of these bad boys around town you will be revealed the top 5 songs to get you ready to go on an adventure. Serious bounty.


This week we love...




Last week Ginny got her first ever job in a fish and chip shop/chinese takeout. While handing out heart disease to the drunk and obese for minimum wage may not be at the top of every 16 year olds wish list, it does come with an unexpected perk: working for the man, himself Eddie Ho.
Eddie Ho, real name Tin Tak Ho, has owned this fish and chip shop since 1981 and for the better part of the week you can find him here, chopping up buckets of chicken with his enormous cleaver and watching over the mushy peas. Ginny Watson reports.

GW: So Eddy do you live above the chip shop?
EH: Yes, but my wife lives in our house in Primrose Hill in London so I spend half of my week there with her and the other half here. She is very sociable so she doesn't like Stansted so much, it is too quiet for her but in London she can go out with all her friends and stay busy. I prefer to be quiet so I like it here but when I go to London I like to walk my dogs up Primrose Hill which is also nice.

GW: Do you have any kids?
EH: Yes, three sons. I am very proud of them. My eldest is a banker in Tokyo, the next one an architect and my youngest a computer programmer. It is nice because I worked very hard for them to go to private schools and they have done well in their lives. I bought each of them a flat in London also to encourage them during their university studies so it is also nice because they all have bases in London.

GW: But how did you afford to buy all these flats? You surely can't make that much money from this shop can you?
EH: (laughs) No, I have an investment business in Hong Kong where I am from, and several apartments there which I lease out. I moved to London in the 60s and bought the terrace house in Primrose Hill which I leased out to the Norwegian ambassador for a long time and then in 1973 I moved to Stansted and bought a big house (6 bedrooms!) which I also lease. And now I also have my shop. I am very proud of it, and very happy to work here.

GW: But even if you're proud of it why do you keep working, I mean you don't really need to do you?
EH: Perhaps not, but I have worked my whole life and there is no reason to stop now. My father died when I was 6 and although my mother remarried I kept my father's name, so there has always been this responsibility that I am the man of the house and must provide for my family. And I have done that, but now I would like to provide for my grandchildren, and keep working so I can send them to private schools also.

GW: You're a very generous man!
EH: (laughs)

And so the little old man in the local chippie is head of his own business empire. I bet that'll make you think again when you next look at your greegrocer/dry-cleaner/florist and just see an immigrant with poor English.


Lanie Lane- What do I do

So I stumbled upon this little gem on another website and was so impressed of how good the girl looked without a bra that I decided to have a listen. Proud to say that being shallow pays off. This is one sassy lady, and when you're usually left with the choice between bootylicious skank or emaciated Miss Miserable, Lanie Lane is as refreshing as pink lemonade on a Southern ranch. It's difficult to find any information on her and even harder to define her style which is currently labelled as blues, jazz, pop, country and swing, but it's sweet listening for a Sunday morning and the prefect soundtrack to getting your life in order before the week starts. Think of the softness of Ella Fitzgerald with the added sass of Billie Holiday or as her profile states: "sweet and sexy, naughty and nice, sugar and spice". Yummy.


The Spirit of the Beehive- Victor Erice

You know that a film's important when they've got 15 copies of it lined up in the university library. 'The Spirit of the Beehive' is one of those and as Victor Erice's directorial debut and widely accepted as a masterpiece of Spanish cinema, I think it deserves the shelf space. Shot in 1973, the film is a subtle criticism of Franco's dictatorship and more specifically the state Spain was left in directly after the civil war. Set in rural Spain in 1940, the film begins with the arrival of a travelling cinema to a small village on the Castille Plateau. The film screened is James Whale's 'Frankenstein' and among the audience is 6 year old Ana who rather than being frightened becomes a little bit obsessed with the monster, a fascination which is only aggravated by her older sister's claim that the beast lives in an abandoned sheep-house outside their village. After several unfruitful trips to the house Ana finds a Republican solider hiding there and thinking that he's the monster she's been looking for develops a silent friendship with him. As you can imagine the film does not end happily but historical context aside it does make for extremely interesting viewing. Each shot is hauntingly beautiful, carefully imagined and put together to convey both the simple joys and dark misunderstandings which can only occur in a child's mind. Ana Torrent is incredible in all her 100cm of red leggings and cropped hair and the film is worthwhile just to see those serious dark eyes trying to make sense of it all her enchanting if rare smiles.Massive massive thumbs up.


High Society- 215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE

Went to this exhibition with my grandpapie feeling like a cultured wild-thing but am sorry to say that it was all very tame. Taking an anthropological perspective, the exhibition shows the plethora of drugs that have been used and abused throughout history and consequently stuck a fat one to the idea that drugs are a recent epidemic. The layout left quite a lot to be desired and you can't help but feel that the curators just whacked together whatever they could find in the archives rather than spending any money on the exhibition BUT: drugs are always intriguing and if it's free why not spend an hour or so reading about how the Brits got China hooked on opium as part of a sound business strategy, or see all the different babies medicines that contained heroine back in the day.

Also...

Just in case you'd ever deluded yourself that you were original.


Exactitudes.