Nathan Sawaya, the artist behind the Old Truman Brewery’s wildly popular The Art of the Brick exhibition, has made some pretty cool stuff out of Lego over the years. He is also – it must be said – a bit of a dick, but don’t let that stop you from going to see his work before it’s […]
It’s rare to experience both excitement and fear before a spa day, but Banya No. 1, London’s foremost – and indeed only – Russian spa, is a bit of a special case. I was really looking forward to experiencing an authentic banya, but I was also afraid of being stripped naked, beaten senseless with birch logs […]
Every ‘urban family’ occasionally gets together and fantasises about going into business, usually over a crate bottle of wine between discussions of dead-end jobs. Through our booze-tinted glasses we imagine opening our own pubs and pizzerias, cupcake bakeries and quirky event franchises. (In the case of my friend Maxine and I, we’ve been talking about […]
On Sunday I ran down to Columbia Road’s famous flower market, but on the way home I went a different way. I have a very, very short attention span, and if I don’t switch routes up I get bored and start focusing on my thighs, which wobble violently with every flat-footed slap of the pavement. […]
I haven’t posted too much recently because I’m on a mission to eat a bit less and move around a bit more, partly in anticipation of the impending party season with all its fatladen festivities, and partly because my liver was beginning to resemble meatloaf. Or possibly Meatloaf.
I have written before about tea entrepreneur Kyle Whittington’s tea and noodle tasting events, which at £15 are some of the best-value evenings in London. Kyle, who runs an online one-stop-shop for lovers of the leaf, has just started a new tasting concept where participants sample a range of teas alongside paired cheeses. Obviously, cheese […]
What if I told you there was something going on in East London sort of like the World Cup, but not shit? There’s booze involved, certainly, but patties instead of players, buns instead of balls and, er, gherkins instead of goals? And a democratic vote at the end in which everyone chooses the winner together? And […]
“Bloody hell!” said James 1, my flatmate and dinner companion, as he glanced down at the menu. We were at Pizza Union, a new pizza bar off Liverpool Street that offers ‘superfast’ oven-baked pizzas at suspiciously low prices. I looked down myself and, yes, bloody hell, the numbers on it really were very small indeed. The […]
The people behind the hugely successful MEAT micro-chain insist on a no-reservations policy in some of their restaurants, so the queues at MEATliquor off Oxford Street and MEATmarket in Covent Garden are usually the kind of length you’d expect in front of Jesus Christ in leper country. Fortunately, their outpost in Hoxton – MEATmission – does offer […]
In London, where you must cough up £25 upfront before riding a very slow Ferris wheel or a very high elevator, a pay-what-you-want walking tour is a rare and unusual thing. Obviously, though, you’ll be in for some dark looks and bad karma if you do turn up and leave without handing over at least […]
