London vs Tokyo - Landmarks (March)

Each month Hannah and I set a theme and we have to take an analogue photo that meets the theme (from our respective city) - although this month Hannah cheated a little and while it says Tokyo I'm not convinced this is really in Tokyo.

Note: we do have promise of a New York joining this challenge for next month.

Last month's theme was Landmarks and here are the results:

LONDON

London Eye splitzered with Big Ben

Over Exposed St Pauls

TOKYO

Things to do at home this week

Okay this may be a little bit of a cop out for this week since I am doing very little due to insufficient funds. I will come back with a full list next week but for now here's the things I will be watching/listening/reading this week. Warning not all of these will be current, I will try to shield you from my nostalgia trip of emo music from when I was 15 though!

Reading

Hannah and I are trying to read the same books while she's away, we just finished The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga - which despite not holding much hope for it, I really enjoyed and it kind of reminded me of Crime and Punishment which I also love.

Next book on our list is A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood.

Oh and Hannah's blog of course - http://365daysoftokyo.posterous.com/

Listening

Joanna Newsom - She's getting more popular attention with this latest album. It's quite different to the previous two, which in my opinion isn't a great thing I loved them and I loved her voice. With this latest one I get the feeling some people think she has now 'learned to sing'. This album sounds a little like Joanna has been taking singing lessons from Kate Bush and Frida Hyvonen... again great things but I guess I miss Joanna's unique voice. Further listening needed I guess.

Watching

TV:

- Lost - Still loving it, we're now on episode 7 of the final series and it is better than ever!

- On recommendation from Slice Magazine I am just starting 30 Rock too. I'll let you know how it goes.

Film:

There's a few films that I shamefully haven't seen yet that are just coming out on DVD

- Fantastic Mr Fox

- A Serious Man

- An Education

When I have nothing else to do there is nothing better than just going through video after video from TED. The one below is from James Cameron.

Things to do in London this week 8.03.10 - 14.03.10

Due to a sudden drop in my bank balance I personally will be keeping it simple this week - I am saving up for my Tokyo trip in June after all - with just drinks and a comedy show this week... but I thought I'd give you some listings of what I may be doing if I did have more money.

Wednesday 10th March 2010 - Josie Long 100 Days to Make Me a Better Person

So the London Word Festival started this weekend I believe, of course you should check out everything going on at the London Word Festival http://www.londonwordfestival.com/

However, the best of the events looks to be (in my humble opinion) One Hundred Days to Make Me a Better Person. Wednesday marks the 100th day in this project. The project has been led by the wonderful Josie Long and the premise is that from December 1st everyone pledged to do something positive once a day.

http://www.hundreddays.net/

http://www.londonwordfestival.com/?p=1253

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Birds Eye View Film Festival 2010 - ICA - Until Friday

http://www.birds-eye-view.co.uk/

I have made a resolution that I will go to more events at the ICA, it really is the best place to see art house cinema and each week they always have amazing events. I could have picked any one of a number of events but with the potential for us to have the first female Oscar winner for Best Direction, it seems appropriate.

I don't know that much any of the films but the one I think sounds the most interesting is Map of The Sounds of Tokyo - http://www.birds-eye-view.co.uk/2037/features/map-of-the-sounds-of-tokyo.html - and not just because I long to be in Tokyo sat the moment.

Also showing on the last night is Whip It! Drew Barrymore's debut as director.

The Comedy Store

As I mentioned at the beginning I will be heading to a comedy show this week. Check out the listings for the night you plan to go on there's always something interesting going on. The one I will be attending is a regular night called The Cutting Edge.

This is what the Comedy Store site has to say about this night:

"A sharp, topical show from a team of six highly skilled stand ups. Suggestions from the weeks' news are part and parcel of the fun, making this show a mixed bag of gags, songs and joke Competitions"

The comedians are picked from a regular selection, I'm hoping for Rich Hall though.

Things to do in London this week 1.03.10 - 7.03.10

Okay I am now hoping these are going to be a regular occurence on Driscola, I will try to put these out each Sunday with 3 or 4 things to do in a week some will be specific to that week or permanent fixtures (like cafes etc)

Gig: The Antlers at Union Chapel - Wednesday 3rd March

I have declared my love for Union Chapel as a gig venue many times on this blog and if I haven't declared my love for the Antlers on here then it's the only place I haven't.

Check out their beautiful song and video below

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Museum/Gallery Event: Late at Tate - Friday 5th March

Like many museums and galleries at the moment, Tate has it's series of themed late nights. This months is gaming and I am finally going to get a chance to participate in one of Blast Theory's pieces... one of my friends wrote about blast theory briefly in their dissertation (she studied theatre design) and I've been obsessed with trying to get to do one of their peices.

They explain the piece they're doing at the Tate on Friday a lot better than I can... http://www.canyouseemenow.co.uk/tate/en/intro.php

The night will also have talks and parlour games... with my all time favourite - Werewolf game.

Check out the programme here http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/eventseducation/lateattatebritain/lateattatebritainmarch2010gameplay.htm

Breakfast: The Breakfast Club

This is my favourite place to eat breakfast in London, you will probably have to queue for 30minutes unless you get there super early but it's worth the wait to have an All American (Pancakes, maple syrup, bacon, sausage, egg, hash browns mmmmmmmmm)

Valentine's Day 2010

Okay so if you've read my twitter this past week you will have noticed that Hannah has now left for Japan for the year. It's going to be a long sad year but I thought I'd take this opportunity to tell you quickly about our Valentine's day.

I should probably start by saying that we celebrated on Valentine's on the 13th as the actual day inconveniently clashed with Chinese New Year.

So it started not with flowers and not even biscuiteers (although fairplay to whoever pays £40 for biscuits) but instead Laduree Macaroons...

We spent the first part of our day trekking all the way to Shoreditch (we live near Twickenham) in search of an analogue photobooth (you know 4 b+w photos in a strip) and look at this beauty that we found in the garden of Cargo...

As for dinner, we went to a place we've been meaning to check out for quite a while called Upstairs. It's in Brixton and looks a little like someon's flat from the outside (sorry about the dodgy iPhone photo)

Wonderful french cuisine, for Valentine's they did a set menu of foie gras; seabass; lamb and creme brulee. Which was all amazing, I wholeheartedly recommend this place http://www.upstairslondon.com/web/index.html

Lomography Workshop: Light Painting

Hannah and I have tried our hands at a little light painting before but only ever with moderate success. So when we found out that the lovely folks at Lomography do workshops we were very excited to find a light painting workshop was one of them.

And this is how it went:

How it’s done:
- You need a camera that will allow you to slow your shutter speed down… a lot of digital/analogue SLRs will allow you to do this for a set amount of time (most often 30 seconds I believe) but with a lomo you can keep it open for as long as you hold the button down.
- So set your Lomo to its B ('Bulb') setting on your Diana (differs between cameras, it’s a crescent moon on the coloursplash) and this will allow the shutter to stay open.
- Turn off all lights
- Hold the shutter release down (there’s a tab you can insert on the Diana if you don’t have a handy assistant)
- Get a torch, sparkler or phone ready and use it to draw whatever you like (remember if you’re writing you need to do it backwards).
- Release the shutter and you will have your light drawing!

Note: If you would like anything other than the light to show up (a person for instance) just fire a flash gun and they will appear (this must be done after the drawing has been complete).

The below photo was Lucy, our Light Painting tutor, writing ‘Lomo’

We also did some long exposures on Regent Street:

I would definitely recommend popping along to one of the workshops (if you don't have a Lomo they will lend you one). As far as I'm aware they haven't put up their Feb schedule yet but check out their facebook and they will update you when it does http://www.facebook.com/lgslondon?ref=ts

I would really like a new banner for this blog so I have been trying to get a "DRISK" light painting, but for some reason when writing with a sparkler I write Ds as Ps and I'm not changing my name due to my inadequacies with sparkler writing. So I will keep trying.

[Disclaimer: As usual all photos are taken by me or Hannah however if you are in any photos and would like them removed please let me know]

Another Meme

I know I promised you several blogs about more exciting thing than this but while I get photos developed for now I am going to do another one of these memes. (Once again I apologise to whoever I owe credit to for these)

Listening... Hospice by The Antlers The Antlers – Hospice

Eating... I can't go a lunch time without having one of Eat's Gyoza Duck Dumpling Soup

Taking photos with... My Diana of course (as pictured above in Cha Cha Moon)

Watching... Okay so here's my current TV Schedule

Sunday - Being Human

Monday - Glee (Just started in the UK)

Tuesday - Survivors

Things I'm looking forward to over the coming months:

New series of Skins - Usually really hit and miss in my opinion but the music is consistently good!

Final Series of Lost!!! - I love Lost, a lot of people stopped watching around season 3 but season 4 and 5 were the best of the lot and I have high hopes for this!

Coming up on driscola.blogspot.com

Okay so I took a bit of a break over Christmas! I will get back into the rhythm of things now that I have a source of income (albeit a fairly small one) and no public holidays to distract me; so I can get down to doing stuff worthy of writing about.

Here's a quick preview of a few of the things I am going to blog about over the next couple of months:

- Lomography - yes I have already blogged about the store but for my birthday/christmas present Hannah bought me a Diana with all it's wonderful add ons, so I will be blogging the photos I take and also about the workshops they run - I'm going to a light painting one this week!

- My choice of valentines restaurant, like any girlfriend-fearing boyfriend I have already booked my restaurant for V day, although the choice of restaurant is going to remain a secret for now. I will quite probably blog about other restaurants I go to before then too.

- Theatre performances - There's this scheme in London that tries to get younger people going to the theatre more so they give free tickets. So Hannah and I along with a few of our friends are going on a semi regular basis. So I will be blogging about a few of these.

- I will also probably be blogging about the departure of my girlfriend to go teach in Tokyo for a year.

So hopefully that has whet your appetite a little, if not you should possibly stop reading my blog after this post... ooops. I will of course continue to blog about any other random events I go to in London well once London starts up after the snow and will bring you my recommendations of things to do each month.