slider – and so she thinks

Music & Words – History & Herstory

admin — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 17:41:44 +0000

History – Herstory: two sides
Exploring both sides of the story through music and words, Booked and It’s All Happening are celebrating Women’s History Month, by listening to what both the guys and girls have to say. Booked plays host to spoken words events that explore the world through words, collaborating with the people who brought you It’s All Happening, a music zine that run gigs to share the good music they have heard. Expect the usual top quality poetry, music, spoken word and singing, all within a quirky and intimate setting in the creative hub of London town.
The event is on Sunday 17^th March from 6.30pm at The Book Club, Leonard Street, EC2 and tickets are only £5 in advance! Buy here http://www.wegottickets.com/event/210302 The first was a sell out, so buy early!
Featuring dynamic spoken word from the man described as a verbal wizard – Charlie Dupre, soothing and searing vocal harmonies courtesy of Eliza Shaddad, and delightful acoustic folk delivered through the blonde beard of TorbenTietz. Julie Mayhew will be reading a short extract from her darkly funny novel Red Ink; the evening also features short stories from the cynical/romantic collection Lover’s Lies, read by Bobbie Darbyshire. Camila Fiori is introducing some of her unique poetry, as is the direct and engaging ‘cultural terrorist’ Megan Beech, all of which will be wonderfully woven together under the guidance of our compere, Dan Simpson.
Investigate the facebook event here… https://www.facebook.com/events/148919681930765/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Music and words from Music & Words

admin — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 19:21:36 +0000

Here is a taster of some of the artists we have performing at The Book Club on Sunday 17th March for Booked and It’s All Happening’s Music & Words event, History – Herstory: two sides.
Get your tickets now!

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/63161710″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Ai Fiori – New York

admin — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 15:55:57 +0000

Come January in New York, every city dweller neglects their well meaning resolutions to eat in and eat healthily in order to participate in Restaurant Week, the three weeks (don’t ask) a year when some of the higher end restaurants throw open their doors to the lowlier of us with prix fixe menus. On my first trip to the office of the New York branch of my new company, and the first time I met my new manager, a group of us went to Ai Fiori for their Restaurant Week three course lunch.
Keen to impress my manager and colleagues, whilst hoping that it wouldn’t be too obvious that my usual restaurant was Pizza Express (complete with a Voucher Cloud 2 for 1) I felt that I could exude the air of sophistication that this Fifth Avenue establishment demanded.
It seems New Yorkers don’t drink at lunchtime, even in the advertising business. No matter, a diet of soda (check me) was catching up with my hydration, so tap water was fine. It was also nice being in a foreign country without wondering whether it was ok to drink the tap water.
As temperatures peaked at -12C that day, a warming and hearty soup to start was the only choice. We all ordered the same, and suddenly waiters arrived behind each of us, and placed down a 16” diameter bowl. Inside however was not a bucket of soup but three shavings of ginger and a sprinkling of butternut squash chunks, no more than a quarter of an inch in size. A hand reached round, and poured a buttery, creamy substance that barely covered the base of the bowl. Clearly they do things differently here I thought as I licked some of the luke warm liquid from spoon.
Main course was pan roasted skate with lentils. The oil crust on the skate was thicker than the skate itself, which I suppose is not hard for a flat fish. Tasty enough, although the dollop of sweet white sauces with the lentils was odd, if strangely satisfying. It always amazes me with premium restaurants how hungry it is possible to feel post meal. I’m not after an all you can eat full English (believe me, I’m not that kind of girl). Small portions laden in oil and fat, easily clocking in a full day’s energy allowance, but in such physically small quantities that the stomach is nowhere nearly satieted.
Dessert was an insanely rich chocolate mousse. I like dark chocolate, the darker the better, and am all about the 70%+ cocoa solids, but geeeez, as they say in the USA. A delicious dollop of Amaretto ice cream was however wonderful, and the crunchy biscuit that garnished the plate a highlight.
Overall, I fear that my opinion of Ai Fiori says more about me than the restaurant. Maybe, despite the advertising job, the office in New York, and dining and multi star restaurants, I haven’t really grown up much since I was a kid. My favourite bit was still the ice cream.

Athens, grittily getting on

admin — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 12:40:43 +0000

Pelts of heavy rain hit my highly permeable clothing, as I amble between cars and puddles, trying to avoid them both, all the while ducking trees and keeping an eye out for a place of refuge – a café.
The hen do hasn’t gone quite to plan. Our beautiful spacious apartment is indeed beautiful and spacious, but also miles from civilisation. Ironic, given we are in the nation that invented it. Suburbia Athens style, public transport is sparce, and the Acropolis truly a pilgrimage. Add to this the torrential rain and gloomy skies, and it is fair to say that the reality is a little different from our images of a sun drenched sophisticated city break.
But this is an opportunity to discover Athens through the eyes of the Athenians. Not the ancients, Zeus and his cronies, where deities an devotions ruled sway, but Athens in 2012, perpetually teetering on the edge of the economic lifeline of a tumble to the abyss of financial desolation.
As in any Eastern European of Mediterranean city, the café I sit writing this in is not full of the yummy mummys that frequent such places in leafy west London, but men at least twenty years past being ‘of a certain age,’ sipping their thimbles of coffee, stroking their balding heads, and waving their hands animatedly as they debate their manifestos for the way the world should be. Greek is a difficult language, and one I am unable to fathom, but one gets the feeling that the tirades of emotion or delicately and deliberately stated points, as well as the headlines on newspapers that line the walls of the shops where windows once were, are not concerned with the latest plastic celebrity gossip.The ‘chatter’ I find myself next to the plane warns me to watch my bags and to be wary of pickpockets. ‘ Like any city, I say?’ Living in London, I know the perils of leaving my valuables, or even non valuables, on show for all to grab at. ‘No, not like any city’ he says ‘the people are hungry.’ Everywhere we go in the suburb of Mardisoi, the suburb in which we are staying, we are met with bafflement as to why we are in Athens, and the joke is not lost on us that it’s not for the weather.
Everyone we meet is friendly, to the point at which it is alarming that the fact that it strikes us, shows how rare it must be to see seven girls in their mid twenties here on holiday, and interested in their surroundings. Harried shoppers not only painstakingly explain the directions to our destination, but even lead us there. The complexities of a Greek menu are drawn in pictures, and the owner of our apartment even pops round one evening with the most decadent chocolate cake this side of Belgium, in celebration of my friend’s impending nuptials.
Despite the bleak economy, bleak weather, and bleak crumbling buildings, there is a sense of stiff upper lip, although obviously administered with Mediterranean pizazz. Athens is a place obsessed with the perfect form. From the ancient Doric columns, elegantly tapering to the top, the dedication to the goddess of everything, to the intricate attention that is given to pouring the perfect cup of coffee.
The milk is thick, my coffee bitter, my feet wet, and my eyes tired. I won’t be sad to go home. But I do hope to return to Athens when it is in a good mood, as even this dampened Athens is one of welcome.

Bedtime Stories

admin — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 14:37:06 +0000

The reputation of 40 Winks is high. The Saturday Times voted it one of the top 60 things to do in the world, whereas the Sunday Times Travel Magazine went one better and made it one of the 14 most amazing things to do in the world! Was an evening in a strange yet unassuming house dressed in my night gown, feasting on an array of homemade nibbles and sipping gin in teacups the best thing to do on a miserable evening in Stepney Green on my first single Valentine’s? Bed Time Stories was about to be discovered.
David Carter’s house is like the man himself – eccentric, quixotic and strangely charming. A combination of the simple things in life, stories, drinks and friends, but delivered with such style and aplomb is what makes Bed Time Stories such an institution. That beautiful boudoir balance between naughty and nice, sensual and sexy, hangs over the building like a delicious perfume, and squeals of delight rung from all the small corners as attendees discovered a new and delightful distraction.
This evening was all about Lust, Love & Longing; sexy stories were delivered by the lovely Cat Weatherill, her hands and face lighting up the words, and Sally Pomme Clayton decorated her detailed telling of the story of Eros with instruments from around the world. Songs from Maud Maudlin should, and could, have been a perfect Parisian dollop of amour to the evening, but that she had to bring and operate her own cd player, somewhat dampened the magic.

If anything, what Bed Time Stories managed to convey is what libraries and authorities and people are worrying is declining. The simple, age old delight in delivering a story and communicating a message is something that will never be lost, and it’s nice to be reminded of that in such glamorous surroundings. Whimsical and intoxicating, both in ambience and liquor levels, this was the kind of dreamy bedtime that sent us all into a delighted slumber. Which is what the perfect evening should be like.

London Story Slam

admin — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:17:19 +0000

Written for the London Story Slam
The guy to my right takes a sip of his coffee, the thud of its stained base being placed on the table just masking the name of the person on the other end of the phone.
‘Yeah, I’m living in London unfortunately.’
Mid gulp, the hot syrupy liquid in my mouth swells, as difficult to swallow as the overheard comment. Over the rum of my mug I scan the room. No one else flinches. There is not a flutter. Heads buried in laptops, bottoms planted in seats, they don’t seem to have registered that last word. ‘I’m living in London…unfortunately.’
I push back my chair from the table, the chair legs scraping the tiled floor in the same way that his comment grazed my ears. A middle aged women in the corner twitches her disapproving head towards me, with a glare that surely made her soya milk curdle. Moving with ferocity is not on the menu here.
‘Unfortunately?’ I splutter. ‘Oh yes, one is so unfortunate.’
The poor guys looks up at me with a degree of bewilderment in his eyes.
‘You don’t deserve to be here’
‘8 million people call it home. All afflicted souls are they? I’d hazard a guess that the 26m who visit every year don’t share your views.’
He looks away from this madwoman, sips his drink.
‘London is still paved with gold in the dreams and hearts of many, the place for destiny to become reality. As a child I used o press my nose against the dirty window pane of the South Eastern service, my heart leaping with knots of excitement, the mantra of ‘I’m going to live here, I’m going to live here’ nestling in perfect unison with the soundless spaces left by the clackety clack of the wheels of the track. I wouldn’t say I am unfortunate to be here.
‘Where else, in one saunter, can you be Elizabeth Bennett, Oliver Twist and Septimus Smith, all by simply crossing the street or turning a corner?’
By now a few other members of the clientele have been jolted into, not motion as such, but a certain level of curiosity as to what the hell this frantic female is yelling about.
A paused for breath enabled me to to just catch the old man in the purple leather chair grunt a derisory ‘Hormones’ into his grey beard, then settle back into The Times.
‘Have you never stood on Parliament Hill and seen London stretched out before you, icon after icon, all in one neat row, a scenic snapshot of beauty over a myriad of activity.
He gathers his papers, eyes firmly fixed to the floor.
‘Or gazed on the moonlight on flickering on the Thames, a thousand million different mirrors, glistening at variegated angles, ricocheting lights of the city, sometimes right into your eye, so bright that your brain is dazzles and you tumble in love again.
‘Do you want to go for dinner? ‘ I venture enthusiastically, as though the last few minutes have been a witty interchange of banter between the two of us, rather than a tirade of abuse at his choice of vocabulary.
A vehement ‘No’ turned my offer down.
‘Yeah, let’s go out – I’ll prove to how lucky you are to be here. Lebanes on Edgware Road, or some Greek up in Green Lanes. Or maybe you’d prefer a snack – we can get a bagel from Daniels in Golder’s Green.
‘Think about it, what can possibly be lamentable where you can be anyone you like, changing identity through a desire for exploration or escape, faster than any superhero can by putting his pants on the outside. London is the ultimate date – looks and a personality.
He goes to take another sip, and stalls. The cup runneth empty. I now have his full, if not voluntarily devoted, attention.
‘I mean, yeah sometimes the tubes are delayed, light pollution is a problem, and it rains, but where else do you pass through places on your way to work that as a child you thought only existed in board games?
Needing support, I rack my brain for opinions of those more authoritative than myself. Plato said that what makes a city is the people. Do you think that everyone here is doomed, hapless souls wandering their cursed streets? Or John Berger, he reckons that London is perpetually a teenager. A heady cocktail of hope, desire and potential – sometimes tough to be sure, but exhilarating, and with all of life ahead, certainly not unfortunate. Or Blake, he believed there to be no finer sights that the view from Westminster Bridge, and he didn’t dish out praise lightly. I stop short of asking ‘when the sun is in the sky, why oh why, would you wanna be anywhere else?’
Except of course, I don’t say any of this. I push my chair out, pick up my bag, and walk out of the American coffee chain, into the soulless shopping centre, and vow that rather than think about how much I like London, I need to live like I love it.

The teapot

admin — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 23:06:15 +0000

In the centre of the table sat the teapot, the porcelain greying with age, but still beautiful, the crimson flowers creeping over it. The handle had been broken multiple times but fixes rendered it capable of completing the function for which it was intended, whilst cracks in the surface revealed the bumps and scrapes it had been subject to.
Integral to the morning, whether this be the father’s first swig of tea as he rushes out of the door to work, or mother’s gently brewed with love cup to entice the teenagers out of bed for school, and the centre piece of lazy weekend breakfasts, the family gathered round, lingering over toast crumbs and Frosties stuck to the rims of bowls like limpets In the rock pool of milk. ssential in the afternoon for brewing the accompaniment to a biscuit, and brewing the feelings and warming the friendship that allows two old friends to pour out their worries and woes, squeeze out their laughter and tears. Sometimes it was nothing more than a comforting hug, a way to punctuate the day and reassure that life was continuing. To greet visitors and family, a way to welcome people in, a way to display arms open greeting, even though in practice they hugged the cup that was given. The children would never open up without a warm cup of tea poured from the pot – warm, not hot, and her husband did not feel as if he had truly come home until the first sip was taken.
So of course it was going to be bruised and battered. It was
an object to be used, without realising how much it was relied upon, and the love integral to its function.

A novel tea

admin — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 21:43:48 +0000

It is 4pm. I get cranky if I don’t have a cup of tea by this time in the afternoon. My boyfriend knows this and so he drags me to the nearest shop to indulge me in my favourite brew. We are very lucky as the nearest shop turns out to be The Fourteas, a 1940s themed tea shop. Despite being just 25 (literally just; we are away in Shakespeareland to celebrate my birthday) I am hit with waves of nostalgia, more than likely fabricated memories and feelings that I have built up with the aid of tales from my grandparents and grainy television footage and photos of the war.
The lady in her headscarf comes over to take our order. A list of more than twenty teas is a little dizzying for me, and her and her husband help us out. Basically I want something that will go well with that scrumptious looking carrot cake over there. The frosting glistens and calls to me, and the smell of nutmeg wafts temptation.
She brings a big slice, two forks, and a pot of tea. Period crockery that I last saw on the Antiques Roadshow is laid on the table. I don’t really know what to do with tea when it’s not in a bag. We manage. It tastes good. I read wartime recipe books and study the ration cards around the room. I peer out the daintily clad windows, grateful that I am in here out of choice and will not have to leave to escape an air raid. I see the smiles of people in newspaper cuttings, enjoying VE day celebrations. I listen to a scratchy Vera Lynn on the wireless. And I remember what a treat afternoon tea is, when you make it matter.
You can read the original article on the wonderful Jammatology.

Music & Words – January 19th @ The Gallery Cafe

admin — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 20:28:59 +0000

Booked and It’s All Happening are getting together to bring you a night of two of life’s finest things – music and words.There will be acoustic music, melodic bands, poetry performances, readings and all combinations of music and words, words and music.
Taking place at The Gallery Cafe in Bethnal Green, on Saturday 19th January, the event will be the perfect antidote to January blues, with the intimate surroundings and inspiring performances. Eliza Shaddad, actors from Liars’ League, Anthony Anaxagorou and Drew Worthley are just a few of the acts that will grace the stage.

In conjunction with Books For London we will be running a book exchange on the night, and you get £1 off entry if you bring a book along to swap.

We also want to hear what you have to say, so any budding writers out there who would like to hear their words on stage, either bring along a piece or send it to us in advance, and we will pick one to showcase on the night.Tickets are a bargainous £6, or only £5 when you bring along a book to swap for Books For London. http://www.wegottickets.com/event/194388http://www.facebook.com/events/528321390529389/
http://bookedlitevents.wordpress.com/
www.itsallhappening.co.uk

Tickets now available forMusic and Wordsfrom www.WeGotTickets.com

The I.D. – Own Designed Love

admin — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:23:24 +0000

Released October 29th on Duchamp Records

Own Designed Love is the new single from London based The ID, released on October 29^th. The video synthesised various off kilter images and loops in a slightly surrealist style, an avant garde montage inspired by the work of Buneul, Dali and Cocteau, among others, all linked together by the Dadist movement that influences so much of the band’s ethos and output.
In Own Designed Love The different elements of the band are more layered, building upon one another but each its own entity, flickering and flirting together, rather than compressed in intensity as in Age Anti Age, the debut single from earlier in the year. A swelling onslaught of emotion, the song’s simmering menace is somewhat intoxicating in aura, and the perpetual build of dark melody into a hooky chorus marks the band out as master song smiths, and definite ones to watch. Conveniently, they’re playing the No.6 Basement on Oct 27th, Waiting Room on Nov.14th, and Camden’s Barfly the first day of December, so you can go and watch them!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUWhCc6ILLE]