BigShinyThing

Following an online call-to-arms, London yesterday saw a flashmob of mask-wearing, beatbox- and poster-wielding protestors converge on the Church of Scientology’s centre on Tottenham Court Rord for some good old-fashioned British fun-poking and rabble-rousing. Bless.

From Deathboy’s blog:

One guy in a full-on V outfit made an announcement in a very dull and proper fashion that none of us could hear properly. We were busy heckling him (anonymous has no problem with criticising anonymous), when he reaches the end of his speech and presses play on a boombox. Rick Astley: Never Gonna Give You Up

The crowd went fucking wild.

500 people rick-rolling the UK Scientology head office. It was at this point I saw the corners of the cops’ mouths twitch into smiles as they realised it was ok: we were from the internets.

Indeed.

[Image presumably taken anonymously -- let us know if it's yours!]

If anyone asks me why I live in London, I always say, “For the culture, darling, for the culture”. Unfortunately my life usually revolves around working till I drop occasionally punctuated by wine fuelled loiterings in a pub. Recently, however, I managed to spend a couple of weeks soaking up culture enough to last a year.

Wagner was the major motif for this cultural overdose, with the added bonus of a visit from Father and Sister – long overdue and acting as the catalyst for the other events. Although the trip was organised a year in advance I made the significant sacrifice of giving them the two tickets allocated my “Friend of Covent Garden” status. With hawk-like concentration and swooping tactics I managed to get returns for all performances except the all important Walkyrie featuring Domingo as Siegmund. Undaunted, I queued for hours outside the ROH for the privilege of a daily return. (Note to anyone who queues for day return tickets: If the person in front of you asks if it’s okay for her friend to join her in the queue the answer is No. However, Karma made a brief visit and allocated me the next return two minutes after they got the last of the day release tickets – and a much better seat it was too. Ha!)

As an opera lover, I am amazed at how infrequently I manage to get myself to the ROH or ENO. Perhaps it’s a bit extreme to do no opera for 7 years and then cram 20 hours into 1 week – and since I thought I’d not be able to get tickets for the performance I also went to the rehearsals. Mmmm. 40 hours of opera in the space of 3 weeks. But absolutely worth it. Not for the fainthearted, what with all the naked rhinemaidens and incest, but a glorious celebration of some of the world’s most debated music. And the lights. My god the lights.

Not sufficiently sated with this mammoth Wagner-fest, I felt honour bound to offer my family an insight into all this culture I supposedly drown myself in on a regular basis. We went walking in Kew Gardens and admired the Henry Moore. I can recommend this to anyone as a fantastic day out – and if you arrive by 11:40 sign yourself onto the free guided tour.

We followed this up with a performance by Einaudi and Friends – and my, what friends he has. A real treat to hear Ballake Sissoko on the kora, and Djivan Gasparyan on the diduk.

All fired up with the washes of emotive sounds from one of the leading minimilists of our time, we hotfooted over to the Barbican for a little Sibelius. Nothing like Sibelius to rouse the blood. Throw in an entirely unexpected debut performance of Saarioho’s Quatro Instants with an inspired rendition by Karita Mattila and you have an evening of glorious culture which deserves extended wallowing.

And in amongst all this opera, symphony and art? Trundling over to nearby Peckham to attend the “Fall into Place” art event: an unexpected experience I am convinced could only happen in London. Housed in an unassuming terraced house on a quiet residential street accessed through the ground floor window, this innovative celebration of art and music was great fun. Unfortunately, I timed it badly to coincide with a non-musical half hour, but after a slightly ungainly entrance, and possibly more literal interpretation of falling into place than was wise, I had a jolly wander through the rooms. I particularly liked Alice White’s portraits in the main room, and the bathroom decorations.

All in all, a couple of weeks to remember. I live in London for the culture you know, darling.

So that’s what £400k spent on Wolff Olins’s endless meetings and stale Pret sarnies bought us. Good to see that some of the money ‘freed-up’ by the arts funding cuts we mentioned earlier has been spent so wisely.

But, enough enough already with the sarcasm. More constructive critics might argue that the desire for “reaching out and engaging young people” (presumably that’s a reference to the ‘funky’ shapes and colours, a la Thompson Twins 7-inch sleeves circa 1982) could have been more usefully satisfied by — for example — actually reaching out and engaging with them. London has a unique street-art culture, and that 400k could surely have funded some ongoing recognition of and support for the nascent design talent on the streets of East London — which might have generated some real interest in the design aspects of the Olympics amongst young people. And just maybe, a better logo. A sadly missed opportunity.

(BST’s editor points out that it does look just a teeny bit new rave. Maybe. If you squint. Hard. After downing a litre of ‘vodka’ at a mid-week Dalston lock-in.)

Anyways. You know you’re experiencing a post-’that kidney show hoax‘ sign-o-the-times moment when the BBC News blog speculates that the whole thing might be a set-up to get publicity, after which the plan is to replace the controversial identity with one ‘made by the people for the people’.

We believe they really do think that their design rocks. The suspicious absence of ‘approved’ comments on the official london2012 blog posting also suggests that they don’t want anyone cluttering up their special happy place with naysaying negativity. Maybe they need ‘blogging’ explained to them, as well as ‘design’.

We tripped along to the Surrealist Ball at the Victoria and Albert Museum last night where lots of people had made a Big Effort to dress up — as is the way in London nowadays. With thanks to the people we photographed who patiently waited for us to work out how to use the camera.

As of Sunday April 1st, the Arts Council’s Grants for the Arts scheme will suffer a whopping 35% cut. This means that during the funding year 2007/2008, only £54m will be awarded, down from £83m in the current financial year. If, like us, you were always the last to picked for the team at school or if you simply believe that the arts matter then Get Involved: you can join the Arts Council debate. Also, read The Guardian’s blog on the matter — today’s post is by Peter Hewitt, Chief Executive of the Arts Council. Go on. Add a comment.

And go to this:

OPEN SPACE EVENT TO ADDRESS FUNDING CUTS:
11TH APRIL, 7PM, SHUNT VAULTS, LONDON BRIDGE

This meeting is free of charge. To reserve a space please email: hannah@shunt.co.uk.

New figures, released this week, are expected to show that almost 8,000 people were diagnosed with HIV last year, increasing the number of people living with the virus in the UK to around 70,000. Around a third of people with HIV are unaware that they are carrying the virus and there is fresh concern that people may now be carrying a cocktail of STDs, including HIV, chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhoea. The annual report of the Health Protection Agency is expected to also highlight the rise in infection amongst heterosexuals. Around two-thirds of heterosexuals with HIV acquired the infection abroad, primarily in Africa.

The Terrence Higgins Trust said too many people in the West were taking risks because they felt HIV was a treatable disease and that this lessened the chances of contracting it. The UK government have just launched a TV campaign warning young people of the risks of unprotected sex. One in five under-24s say they do not take condoms with them on a night out.

Source: The Independent via Towleroad.

As part of their World Cup promotion, Nike has put together a nice little ad set on the legendary football pitches of Hackney Harshes. They’ve also released a line of World-Cup sportswear emblazoned with the Hackney borough identity. Problem is they didn’t bother to license it from the council first.

Hackney’s newly re-elected Mayor — Jules Pipe — is understandably not amused:

We have been using this logo for more than 40 years — since before England last won the World Cup! I was shocked that such a huge global company would use it without even approaching us for permission. Nike is one of the biggest sportwear companies in the world. They are selling this stuff everywhere — some of our residents have seen it in shops in Spain, and we have seen it marketed on the internet in Japan, Germany, the US and Italy. They have not offered a penny in compensation to the people of Hackney.

One way of putting this right could be giving us a fair percentage of the retail price and some sportswear for every school child in the borough. Nike have taken, for their own profit, something that belongs to the people of Hackney. They have now offered to meet us for talks and I hope they will have the decency to offer a fair settlement and save this going to court.

We have asked them to withdraw all merchandise until this issue can be settled. I also want assurances from Nike that all this kit has been ethically produced.

Mayor Pipe has pledged to spend every penny gained from Nike on sports development in the borough. Given Hackney’s ongoing financial problems, every penny would help.

[Via CMM News]

Pictures of the Really Big Elephant parading through London are up on Flickr and a vast improvement on the BBC’s coverage. Featured photo from annie_anywhere’s photostream. Relive the whole story on the Sultan’s Elephant site.

Says writer Sukhdev Sandhu, who will be exploring the lost London night through a series of journeys over the course of one year. Nighthaunts is a collaboration between Sandhu, audio artist Scanner and website designer Ian Budden and was commissioned by Artangel. Sandhu’s journey is also being serialised in the Daily Telegraph magazine — he happens to be the paper’s chief film critic. As well as visiting sewers, hanging out with night cleaners and flying over the metropolis in police helicoptors, Sandhu is inviting suggestions of places to visit. Not Trade would be ours…

On a similiar theme: David Batchelor’s Found Monochromes of London, a mesmerising slideshow featuring hundreds of blank rectangles. Until 24 October 2005, Londoners can catch more of Batchelor’s work on the platform at Gloucester Road tube station, as part of the Platform for Art initiative.

In a similar vein: Delete!, which a BST reader kindly reminded me about [via Wooster]. Artists Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf were allowed to cover all the advertising signage, logos and company names on Neubaugasse, a Viennese shopping street, in a monochrome yellow fabric.

Photos of both Monochromes and Delete! are below.

In a truly sweet campaign, the history teacher from Mill Hill County School in North London plans to travel on the tube from seven in the morning to seven at night throughout the month of August. He explains that the inspiration for his campaign came from an article in The Guardian about a woman finding it difficult to get back on the tube after the bombings:

On one occasion she completely broke down in the middle of a busy carriage and only one person went to comfort her. I thought it would be beneficial to do something that would make us notice and care about our fellow passengers a little more, the idea being that we make each other feel a little safer … My main aim though is for people to acknowledge fellow passengers, remain alert to unusual packages and incidents and generally take on a sense of ownership for the underground, which many of us depend upon each day. By doing so I feel that we can increase safety on public transport to a degree.

Dominic carries a counter with him to record how many people have waved back - so far 11,000 have done so. He is giving out a handwritten card to every hundredth person with a message thanking them for saying hello and wishing them a good day.

The only publicity he has done so far is with the Teacher Support site and is keen to stress that he is not interested in raising his personal profile. His campaign is testament though - in its small way - to the power of one.