It's a London Life

Back in 2003, Olaf Eliasson created what is undoubtedly the most effective installation ever experienced in the Turbine hall of the Tate Modern. A dark sci fi fantasy ... a club with no music ... here's a personal interpretation. Original music by Wide Receiver (Steve Blood & Ian Gotts) - 'Microdot' ITN Orchestral Remix (Woof! Records). Email: stevenblood@gmail.com

The last time I went to Paris on the Eurostar (about 4 years ago) I ate a fantastic dinner at a restaurant in St Germain called 'Ze Kitchen Galeri' notable both for what it wasn't: old-fashioned, posh, expensive (due to the favourable exchange rate) as well as for what it was: precise, skilled, & perhaps a little playful rather than pretentious. Since then the chef, William Leduil, has picked up a Michelin star and Ze Kitchen seems to be firing on all cylinders. Another Frenchman who seems to be firing on all cylinders is Vincent Cassel, star of new French gangster flick 'Mesrine: Killer Instinct'. With ingredients including Cassel, Gerard Depardieu, Ludovine Sagnier, Cécile De France & a liberal sprinkling of facial hair, wigs, guns, gangsters, torture & sick humour ("What do you call an Arab in a trash can? A waste, you can get three in there ..."), director Jean-François Richet ceates a fantastic visual feast. Playful rather then pretentiou...

Kaiseki is the big thing in New York cuisine right now, and the biggest name in Kaiseki cuisine is Yoshihiro Murata, the head chef and owner of Kikunoi, a Kaiseki restaurant in Kyoto held in high esteem by both Ferran Adria & Matsuhisa Nobu. Whilst slowly working my way through the very enjoyable Japanese foodie travelogue 'Sushi & Beyond' by Michael Booth I came across this philosophical gem by Murata Murata about the diffference between Japanese & French food: "In haute cuisine you cook by adding or layering flavours of different ingredients in complex ways; in Japan, and in particular Kyoto where we cook mostly with vegetables, the aim is to extract the essential flavour of each ingredient by removing those we don't particularly want, like bitterness. Japanese cuisine is a cuisine of subtraction. " A very interesting concept which you can apply to any creative art? An English version of the Kikunoi website Michael Booth's very informative Ja...

Sunshine, clear blue skies, turqouise water, a top note of sun block, drinks by the rooftop pool (espresso martini anyone?), hot gay guys, assorted metrosexuals sucking their bellies in, bikini babes, tanned milfs & their off-spring, and slackers with laptops. On a Monday in central London ... pray tell, where is this Nirvana? In Shoreditch E1 of course, central London's staycation capital, Shoreditch House. As the heavenly hegemony of foreign travel has trickled down from the aristocratic heights of 'the grand tour', to 'wintering' on the riviera, to tanning in St. Tropez with Bardot, to package holidays in Spain, to Club 18-30, to budget airline travel, to second home ownership, to journeys to peripheral airports ... modern travel has become nothing more than a hellish experience for most of us. So why do we do it when all the above is right here on our doorstep? Following the adage 'build it and they will come', Nick Jones' Shoreditch Hotspot* has...

Kunst Alert! Kunst Alert! Take a walk through "London's trendy Hoxton Square", stumbling through the detritus as you go & head straight into the White Cube. Prepare to be amazed.  Then gorge yourself with Kunst ... with Marcus Harvey's "White Riot" as your starter, main & dessert. Kunst factor: 11/10 Another free in Olde London Town.

We've known it for some time and now we have the proof. That's right, Gordon Brown is not of this earth. Having firstly co-engineered a global economic disaster with that other alien G Bush (same intitals too) and secondly further weakened our military strength by encouraging nuclear disarment, Gordon Brown's real masters have this morning been revealed hovering threateningly over the Houses of Parliament in white blobs captured on camera by Mr Derek Burden of Leverington, Cambs. In an unnatributed quoute  Mr Burdon said "It's just like something from Dr Who". Indeed. Did Andrew T.Davies have a hand in this we wonder? We should be told. Read the Telegraph article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/5007735/UFOs-photographed-over-London.html