Actually, her name's Marina & the Diamonds - live review

I went to see wonderful singing lady Marina & the Diamonds last week. Marina came second in the BBC's Sound of 2010 preview, so my expectations were high.

Her sound is described as theatrical pop, and she's certainly quirky and dramatic. She performs very much as a performer - sometimes aloof, sometimes with gusto, sometimes wry, sometimes heartfelt - and always engaging.



Her songs are lyrically rather wonderful, as she deftly mixes linguistic styles. For instance, she can be singing about lost love, gender identity, or something else wonderfully universal but then drops in a mention of something delightfully pop cultural. It's all wonderfully endearing.



My highlights of the show were:

• Marina's majestic hairflick in song Hollywood when she sings "Actually, my name's Marina" having been compared to Shakira and Catherine Zeta Jones
• A song that may or may not be about gender equality having a reference to Girls Aloud
• The song Shampain with lyrics: "Drinking sham-pain / Made by the angel / Who goes by the name / Of Glitter and Gabriel". It actually sounded like "... the name of Glittery Navel". Both are amazing.
• I'm sure another song had the lyric Home Sweet Gnome Sweet Home
• Marina has a winning way with a tambourine.

And so, the pop equation..

((Kate Bush + Tori Amos) - (piano + plaintive)) x (2010 + pop culture) x (an actress) = Marina & the Diamonds.

Charity auction of photo print: Dingle Pensinsula

A group has recently been set up on flickr for photographers who wish to donate a print of one of their photos, to be auctioned to raise money for the relief effort in Haïti.

I think this is a great idea, and am auctioning a print of this photo of the sun streaming through clouds on Dingle Peninsula in Kerry, Ireland.

I took this on a beautiful peaceful New Years Day in 2003. Hopefully the money it will raise will help others find peace too.



Click on the image above to go to flickr and bid on the image. Or leave a comment here and I'll bid on your behalf. Thanks.

Map pictograms: Haiti

I've long thought maps were cool, and I also really love map pictograms - silhouettes or shapes of countries, continents, cities showing their geographical shapes.

It's really interesting that there are some shapes we instantly recognise - the USA, Australia, UK maybe. And there are some we would not - would you know Nepal's shape, Slovenia's, El Salvador's?

So I'm always interested when I see geographical shapes being used in ads, posters or anywhere else.

I recently saw this image of Haiti / Hispaniola, in an advert to build awareness of post-earthquake relief. Many of us would not have known Haiti's shape before this week, but now it has become a symbol and a sign - we see it and instantly think Haiti, and probably think about earthquake, disaster, tragedy soon afterwards.

I see many more of these, so I am going to start posting them from now. For now, though, I'd urge you to visit http://www.dec.org.uk to donate to the Haiti Earthquake Appeal.

RCA Work in Progress exhibition

I've been to see the Royal College of Art's Work in Progress exhibition, which shows student work in photography, metalwork, silver, jewellery and fashion.

I loved the exhibition last year, so was very much looking forward to it. This year's exhibition seemed to be smaller, but included many interesting sketches, images and ideas taking shape.

It was really cool to see fashion prototypes which in years to come would become wearable, high street items but for now are exciting concepts.

Three of my favourites were:

Lee Simmon's semi-circular wood-cuts

Catherine Aitken's organically patterned textile designs

Agata Madejska's sparse, sleek architectural photography

The exhibition continues until 22 January.

Lady Gaga for Eurovision!

I'm being cheeky with the title here... Some Moldovan guys in a band called AKORD have entered a song called Lady Gaga to their Eurovision song selection.

Here it is. I'd love to see this in Oslo in May, and you'd never know, Lady Gaga herself might turn up on stage!

7 Brilliant Shanghai World Expo 2010 pavilions

I think World Expos are rather fascinating - a great big gathering of nations all showing their countries to the world. It's a great big geography funfair! It's Eurovision for architects! (thanks Mr Clapham Omnibus) Ergo, it must be amazing.

Later this year, the 2010 World Expo is being held in Shanghai - with some amazing pavilions being built to showcase individual nation's landscapes and cultural outputs. Here are some of my favourites.

The Russian pavilion has 12 towers with white, red and gold designs inspired by traditional Russian womens' costumes. How very babushka.

The Israeli pavilion has two forms clasping on to each other - one modern, futuristic, constructed and one traditional, vintage, natural.

The Swiss pavilion is a technological masterpiece with an interactive LED facade and electronic outline of the country's pictogram. But my favourite part is the chair lift on the rooftop.

The British pavilion is a striking piece of sculpture by artist Thomas Heatherwick. It's very striking and dramatic.

The Finnish pavilion looks modern, sleek and very Finnish minimalist cool. It's named kirnu - a giant's kettle - and its surface will resemble fish scales.

The pavilion for the United Arab Emirates is shaped like a sand dune.

The Polish pavilion has a designed inspired by Wycinanki, the Polish traditional folk art paper cut-outs.

To see just one of these buildings would be amazing, so all of them plus many more all on one site must truly a marvel to behold.

(All images come from designboom - click on them to see full postings of the pavilions)

Green Lanes: Turkish shops & cosmopolitanism

Continuing my series of London bars, cafés, shops and restaurants named after foreign places, I took a trip to Green Lanes. Given the sizeable Greek, Turkish and Cypriot communities living nearby, I expected to come away with many venues named after places in those countries.

I wasn't disappointed, with major cities counted for - Bodrum restaurant, Diyarbakir restaurant and Istanbul barbers and a closed cafe bar with the name Kibris (the Turkish name for Cyprus), but four of the many many venues bearing Turkish and Greek names.









Eastern European names also featured, with a Danube bakery and a derelict shop named after Moldova.






I was more surprised to find venues and shops named after more Western European cities - a Paris beauty salon (a place to become tres belle) and Milano restaurant.

Map tattoos: geography on the body

When I was in university, a friend of mine wrote a great geography dissertation about tattoos. She imagined the body as a landscape, with tattoos acting as landmarks and inscriptions in the landscape. People wrote their lives on to their skin, tattoos are like maps to their identities.



I really liked the idea. I wondered if people would mark their patriotism on their bodies, with maps or national insignia as tattoos.




For years, I've wanted to do a photography project on it, but have always stalled at the idea of finding people to photograph. Recently, I started to explore on flickr, finding these fantastic images.



I find it amazing, fascinating and inspiring that people's pride and patriotism lead them to the extent of imprinting maps of their country, state, city onto their skin.



I've created two galleries of these images on flickr: Tattoo Nation I and Tattoo Nation II

(Thanks to flickr users who have given me permission to show their images.)

Linz, 2009 European Capital of Capital

The Austrian city of Linz is in the news at the moment, as it's holding a No Music Day on Saturday. The project is all part of Linz's time as the 2009 European Capital of Culture, a title it shares with Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

I visited Linz over the summer during the Pflasterspektakel festival - a five day celebration of street theatre. And what a celebration it was, with theatre taking over the streets. Comedians, clowns, acrobats, gymnasts, trapeze artists, jugglers all vye for attention, with great busking and music performances too.





Away from that weekend, a vibrant series of events were talking place in Linz including plays set on buses and public transport and headphone-led plays through the city's streets.

In the midst of it all are Linz's outstanding venues, the neon clad Lentos Art Museum (below), the concert hall Brucknerhaus and the museum Ars Electronica Center with a great series of exhibitions, shows, plays and concerts.



There is also a ferris wheel and skywalk high above the city's rooftops, as well as a vast array of symposia and projects about Europe and European identity.


Image by knorp

I really enjoyed seeing how the graphic identity of Linz09 was incorporated in to familiar images of the city like Linzertorte, the local speciality.

كرة القدم! Football with London's Algerian fans.

I wanted to watch Bosnia & Herzegovina -v- Portugal on Saturday, but finding Bosnian fans proved difficult. Phone calls weren't answered, cafés and restaurants seemed to have shut down.

I called a Bosnian charity shop in Hackney, and spoke to a very excitable man with very broken English which yielded directions to a café showing the match. They went something like, "Go to Kilburn. Or Cricklewood! Get on a bus, 5 or 6 stops, there's a McDonalds, traffic lights, go left and it's 50 or 100 metres. And a Charity shop! No! Willesden!"

They were vague but I did find a Bosnian charity shop near a McDonalds by some traffic lights in Cricklewood. However, nobody there knew anything about football.

All was not lost, though, as right next door - and in two other nearby cafés - were throngs of Algerian fans watching Algeria -v- Egypt. Huzzah!



When I arrived, I thought Algeria had won, such was the excitable cheering and whooping. It turned out the match hadn't even started, they were just very excited. I do like a festive atmosphere.

The bonhomie continued throughout the match with oohs and aahs, flag flying, hands flung to the sky, and all manner of expressive reactions. They sung "Viva Algeria!" with giddy abandon.



World Cup qualification rested on the match's result. I could tell it was an important match as there was a "Special Big Day Menu" on display. When Egypt scored in the last minute to force a further match, the mood changed considerably. They all fell silent straight away, with many limping off quietly home, showing no signs of the violence that seems to have marred the fall out from the actual match.

And, with still no sign of any Bosnians, so did I.

The A & Z of Pop

With all the music I have in so many genres (3,500 tracks and counting), I like a nice, simple classification system - I stick to alphabetic by artist.

I was thinking recently who my first and last are, the bookends to all my music: who are my A to Z of pop.

So, first on the list is A Taste of Honey with their ace disco song Boogie Oogie Oogie. I danced to this loads as a young chap at Freakscene, a funky night in Cork that was one part big gay disco, one part indierock moshpit. I regularly begged the DJs to play it. It makes me wanna dance!



The final artist on my line-up is Zuma, a Norwegian group who took part in their Eurovision selection in 2008. They didn't reach the final, but the song Always Always is nice electro-lite midtempo-ballad-ish europop. The lyrics mention sprouts. More vegetables in pop, I say! Zuma's singer came back to Melodi Grand Prix this year as Alexander Stenerud, coming fourth.



So, who are your A & Z of Pop?

Work in Progress, ice Berlin Wall at German embassy

Yesterday, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall, the German Embassy in London installed Work in Progress, a fragment of a wall, made from ice blocks, slowly and surely melting away.

Fall of the Berlin Wall exhibition

It has been twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. To mark the occasion, the Goethe Institute in London are holding an exhibition of Norbert Enker's photography taken in and around the wall and what remains of it.

Taken from December 1989 to March 1992, the photographs document the wall's removal, destruction and the changes in the way it was used. The pictures are haunting and poignant, and give a real sense of the physical mass of the wall, particularly the third image below.

The exhibition continues until December 18 at the Goethe Institute on Exhibition Road.

East from Shooter's Hill: The Urals?

Shooter's Hill in Greenwich is among one of the highest points in London.

Someone once told me that if you go due east from Shooters Hill, the next highest land is the Urals in Russia.

This didn't seen right to me. Shooter's Hill is only 133m high.

So I went to the Royal Geographical Society's library to find out more. We dug out maps of Germany to trace the line of 51 degress, 28' latitude east. (I presumed the Netherlands wouldn't have any higher land).

And I was right - there are a whole host of places in Germany higher than 133m. Forst Gahrenberg and Arenborn, below, are just two.


View Larger Map


View Larger Map

Fodbold! Football with London's Danish fans.

I went last night to Zoo Bar, venue of the Scandinavian Party, to watch two matches: Denmark -v- Hungary & Sweden -v- Albania.

Sweden & Denmark - how would I tell them apart?! It turned out to be easy. The Danes stood, while the Swedes sat. I'm not sure this is any great socio-geographical finding, but that's what happened. So I decided to stand amongst the Danish fans.

Nobody had any flags, which is always a shame. Some Danish men wore the football strip, whilst others had red t-shirts. One man had a red suit jacket. Hurrah for him.

Denmark have already qualified for the World Cup, so when Denmark had lost the lead, the fans looked more bored than bothered.

I got the impression the bar was made for more exciting encounters. A Danish man sullenly leaned on a pole atop a podium.

As the game went on, things were getting more important. The Danes didn't want to be beaten, after all. There was cheering, there was some shouting. A big cheer went up when the Danish number 10 came off. I couldn't tell if they liked him or not.

In the end, Denmark lost and the Danish fans shuffled away. But I'll be back to watch more with them next year.

Sam Taylor

Last night, I went to see Sam Taylor sing at blog-club night EQ. Sam sings melodic, emotional pop songs, with a beautiful voice.

Although last night he did some poppy covers (Billie Jean, Mama Do), he also sang the gorgeous acoustic ballads Sometimes I Need You and Talk Me Down.

Sam has a expressive heartfelt truthful innocence when he sings, and it's rather charming. He's also very a good looking chap. I'm hoping he'll be one to watch in future.

Watch him perform the two ballads below (with apols for the sound quality on the video).

I'm hoping he'll be one to watch in future.






Check out > Sam Taylor on myspace - especially his cover of The Cardigans' Communication, which I think is amazing.

Jalkapallo! Football with London's Finnish fans

I went yesterday to watch football with Finnish fans. I returned to the Famous 3 Kings where the fans were gathering to watch their match against Wales.
The bar has several screens, all showing different matches, so it's always pot-luck to find fans.

Happily, when I arrived, I spied a Finnish flag draped across a fireplace. Hurrah! It turned out that 5 Finns were there.

They were surrounded by Welsh fans though. They sat quietly, one brandishing a scarf. During half-time, they took down the flag.

And then the Russians started arriving, as the kick-off to Russia -v- Germany approached. Lots of them. They were in high style, in the best-that-money-can-buy labels. Even the Russian football strip looked like D&G. My picture above just shows the Russians.

It was a veritable Russian invasion.

The Finns, in altogether more sombre and modest outfits, sat their ground, and watched their match.

When Finland scored a goal to take the lead, one man stood up and did a small dance. His friend took the flag and wore it as a bandana.

The Welsh fans started singing and chanting. The Finns stayed sitting, probably thinking "we're actually winning". I hoped they'd respond with a few bars of Hard Rock Hallelujah, but alas no.

In the end, the Finns' quiet resolution paid off. Finland beating Wales 2-1. And for all the Russian cheering, they lost out to Germany.

Flags, made of paper

My newest fun thing to do is to make collage flags from bits of scrap paper. I recently changed jobs, and made these flags for colleagues to say farewell.
UK flag

USA flag


Australia flag



Kent flag


Sicily flag



Wales flag


India flag



Nepal flag


Berlin flag


Cuba flag



Ukraine flag



Ethiopia flag



Madagascar flag


Philippines flag



Ireland flag


France flag


Ibiza flag

The Golden Filters, live in London

Last night, I went to Cargo to see a band called The Golden Filter.

Although, variously through the evening, I called them:

• The Golden Glitters
• The Golden Flippers
• The Golden Floaters
• The Golden Fluffers
• The Golden Frapp
• The Golden Lamé

 I don't know why.

The Golden Filter are an electro-duo made up of Australian Penelope and Ohio-born Stephen.

Stephen looks like an archetypal Noo Yawk gay (think Anthony in Sex & the City in a offbeat quirky phase) and Penelope has an amazing name.

She spent most of her time on stage stridently marching on the spot, while swoop-turning her head from side to side. At one point, she was splashing in small puddles on the stage.

Their songs are wailing & whisper vocals over electro with heavy percussion. On stage, this meant tambourines, castanets and many many drum banging sequences. It was all quite Eurovisiony, although they probably wouldn't like that.

Their final, mammoth drum-a-thon needed a golden glitter machine to explode over the crowd.

And so, an equation:

 ((Human League x Goldfrapp) + (Kate Bush wailing - eccentricity)) x (electro-nihilism + eurovision drumming) = The Golden Filter

> Check out: The Golden Filter on myspace