Folkestone and Stokey in the same Guardian column?

The Guardian's Backbencher column today has a mention for Stoke Newington's own 73 and the fact that the reality TV winning political candidate has announced his intention to stand against Michael Howard in Folkestone. More on www.voterodders.org. With all the free publicity he could probably get in somewhere, frightening. It's like pop idol but real, can anything be done?

Our replacement of Angel series two disk 3 still didn't work, so taking it to Folkestone for the weekend to watch it there...

Ew, Queen tickets go on sale in the morning. Only Brian May and Roger Taylor, John Deacon has better sense (I met him once you know, at a Pobitch party), and Paul Rodgers of Free is replacing Fred. Blee, you might as well go and see We Will Rock You. Dates here, from 10am Saturday. But still don't do it.

How smart is this? It's the life story of the guy who makes the minipops pictures, but with BRANCHES. What if he didn't go to uni? You probably don't know him but it's an interesting idea. Seen any rip offs of this yet?

On the subject of art projects the wacky Old Street pranks I mentioned before are still in place, but getting gross now. The milk bottles on the breakfast table laid out on top of a bus stop have gone really rotten, and for some reason the whole things' not been washed away by the weather. Next time, whoever you are, use white paint instead of milk, please. Hmm, I have a picture of this on my phone I think, but I rarely take pics off the phone again...

2005 :: Comment / reply

Queen BACK!

We're not going to this, nor going to get the album I wouldn't have thought. Went to see "Queen" before with Paul Rodgers, and it was good to hear some of the tunes live, but it's probably best just to leave it. Also Brian May seems like a bit of a miserable git to me, from reading his blog and meeting him once. John Deacon had the best idea, he had nothing to do with the show that we went to, last thing I think he was involved in was the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert.

The band have also announced a Queen and Paul Rodgers 14-nation European tour, starting in September.

It will include UK dates in Nottingham, Glasgow, London, Cardiff, Birmingham and Liverpool.

They will also play in Russia, Poland, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Hungary, Serbia, the Czech Republic and Austria.

Guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and Rodgers wrote the new album in late 2007 and early this year. It will be released on 1 September.

Bassist John Deacon, who retired from the music business in the late 1990s, will not take part in the tour.

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Easter beaster

A lot to write about, had a huge great easter weekend and really managed to fit quite a lot in. Can I remember it all is the question though... Friday daytime is too long ago to be sure, but in the evening we did a little tour of Stoke Newington Church Street, taking in The Defoe, The Lion, and The Rose and Crown, and ended up in Il Bacio. This is one that we could do with in Folkestone, it's a nice place. The garlic bread is ace, and I'm led to believe the Pollo Primavera is amazing. The foods a bit dull for me and my limited diet, but nice anyway. Mostly we go there because we like the happy dog picture on the wall:

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Saturday was proper cleaning and packing day though we started it with a long walk down Stoke Newington High Street, to Old Street, stopping in at The Geffrye Museum on the way. Have been passing this every day for ages now and we've never been in, so our last weekend was a prime opportunity. It's a nice collection of furiture and interiors, with recreations of rooms from the 1600s to the present day. It's free to get in, and would be a nice place just to go and have a cup of tea, wish we'd done it before.

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Sunday, more cleaning and packing, another trip to Fresh and Wild for lunch, and then perhaps our last night out in Stokey. Anglo Asian's always been a favourite in the area, kind of sorry to be leaving that one, not found a sit in indian restaurant in Folkestone that's quite as good yet. Was put off a bit when we got our poppadoms, the chutneys were delivered to us direct from an abandoned table. I know this happens, but they could have at least run them via the kitchen, pretended they'd not been pawed at by other punters before us. The three of us (Clare, me, and flatmate Emma) had our regular dishes I think, seemed only fitting for our last visit; Vegetable Dhansak, Chicken Shaslik, and Butter Chicken. Farewell old friend.

Yesterday (Monday) saw a proper day out for me - went to see QUEEN at Brixton Academy, with best man Andy. We were apprehensive about this, obviously we knew it wouldn't really be Queen, just Brian May and Roger Taylor and Paul Rodgers. Our day started long before the concert, with a tour of Wetherspoons pubs of London, an aborted trip to Madam Tussauds (hour and a half queue to get in) and a look round a Sherlock Holmes museum. This is a recreation at (roughly) 221B Baker Street of how Holmes house might have looked. Every discription from the book that could be made real in this place was, and there were characters from the books as slightly ropey waxworks. That's SIX POUNDS we'll not see again, not recommended.

Got to Brixton Academy early, saw queues going right round the building, so went for a Nandos. By the time we'd eaten we could walk straight in, just about in time for the opening song "Tie Your Mother Down". This was ace, and everything we'd hoped really. Paul Rodgers vocals seemed to be turned down quite low, so as not to be compared too unfavourably with Freddie's I think. Lots of songs were sung more by the audience by him too. I'd forgotten he was in Bad Company too, so there were more non Queen songs than I'd thought. Lots of fans in the audience seemed pleased, but it was a lowlight for me. Some of the song choices seemed odd, could have been because it was a fan club show, but my fellow attendee suggested they were playing more of the songs they wrote, less of Freddie's and John Deacon's. Who knows? Was good to hear songs like Brian's "39", just done solo by him. Bohemiam Rhapsody was actually quite good, though I was dreading it. They used video footage of Freddie performing it, like they did at the tribute concert, though that time they had Elton John and Axl Rose sharing the live vocals, and this time not.

I'm pleased that I saw the show, and that it wasn't at Wembley or anywhere too huge, but not entirely sure it was worth the ticket price. Left during the encore of Paul Rodgers stuff, maybe they ended with We Will Rock You and we missed it. Ah well.

2005 :: Comment / reply