Copyright

Two contrasting usages of my photos found on the Internet in the last couple of days: firstly, the nice people at Schmap sent me this email:

Hi Mike,

I am delighted to let you know that your three submitted
photos have been selected for inclusion in the newly
released third edition of our Schmap London Guide:

Hackney City Farm
http://www.schmap.com/london/sights_zoos/p=1127/i=1127_3.jpg

RHS Flower Show
http://www.schmap.com/london/events_victoriaandpimlico/p=317037/i=317037.jpg

RHS Flower Show
http://www.schmap.com/london/events_victoriaandpimlico/p=317037/i=317037_5.jpg

If you like the guide and have a website, blog or personal
page, then please also check out our schmapplets -
customizable widgetized versions of our Schmap London
Guide, complete with your published photos:

http://www.schmap.com/schmapplets/p=55236434N00/c=SE10011021

Please enjoy the guide!

Best regards,

Luke Ritchie,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides

In sharp contrast to this welcome, authorised use of my pics and polite communication, I discovered a number of my Burlesque shots being used here. While I’m quite happy for the Burlesque group to use my pics to promote their night (I did, after all, take the shots at one of their club nights), I was a little narked that they did it a) without crediting me for the photos or linking to the originals on flickr, and b) without letting me know they were using them…

Last Days

Ah well, after almost two years and five months; it’s my last day at Visit London and boy, am I bored. Some of us are going for the obligatory drinks sesh after work, so I’m kind of obliged to hang around in the office. There’s no urgent work I need to do, I can’t be arsed finding work to do, facebook is down, I’ve got no new mail, Google Reader has been read, and I’ve exhausted the opportunities on flickr of finding new pics of the latest London car bomb.
Maybe I’ll go for a wander and see what they’ve got in the local bookshop… I should have brought my camera in really.

Jarvis

Went to see Jarvis on Saturday night at the RFH, where we continued to experience the crapness that is the RFH that we experienced on Wednesday night at The Stooges gig. This time we arrived at the bar to overhear someone beside us ordering two Kronenbourgs; the fridges behind the bar were full to bursting with bottles of Kronenbourg: “we’re not selling those tonight” responds the barmaid. “oh” says the customer, and orders two lukewarm bottles of Stella instead - the only alternative.
We get to the bar: “two kronenbourgs please”. “we only have stella”.
- “oh, what about all those?” (pointing at the fridges). “they’re not for sale”. “why not?”. “it was a mistake.” “oh, ok - two stellas then please”. We then sat and drank our Stellas on the balcony and watched the storm come rolling in over London.
A short while later, H. went back to the bar (a third barperson this time). “two kronenbourgs please”, “they’re not for sale”
“why not?”, “because they’re in glass bottles”
“can’t you pour them into plastic cups?” (points to big pile of plastic cups on the bar). Barman: “oh, yeah - I suppose so” - and proceeds to pour us the drinks we wanted. Pants.
Later, we had taken our seats for Jarvis (again, right near the back - but not too bad a view), Jarvis comes on stage. “come on everybody, stand up!”. Everyone stands up and everyone under 5′8″ suddenly finds themselves looking at the back of the person in front of them. And it stayed that way for the whole gig.
The RFH is a nice enough venue, but it is seriously let down by unavailable toilet facilities (wednesday), piss poor bar management (the bar on our floor was ‘closed’ once the concert started), and its inability to host ’standing’ concerts. It’s a seated venue, and works very well like that - but as far as standing goes it ranks with the worst of them. Oh, and pieces of the ceiling above us kept buzzing loudly in time with the bass.
The recent refurbishment of this venue totalled around £91 million.

Jarvis himself was outstanding, as ever.

Things To Do With Album Art

Not Letting Up

Looks like the weather has finally broken at Glastonbury - and this on the first day…

The Stooges @ The RFH

Had a ‘real cool time’ at The Stooges gig at the newly refurbed Royal Festival Hall last night. Our initial feeling that we had really rubbish seats at the back was tempered on discovering that we had a shelf behind us to look after our beer and were able to stand on our seats without annoying anyone behind us. Iggy himself was in great shape - not entirely unlike Mick Jagger on speed. At one point Iggy encouraged around 30 audience members to join him onstage; great fun for those that already had the best seats in the house, and entertaining for the audience too until he disappeared among them and 99% of the audience were left looking at a bunch of middle-aged blokes shuffling about around an invisible Iggy. Despite this, all the greats were played ‘No Fun’, ‘Not Right’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’, and a long version of ‘Funhouse’ that had Iggy barking and howling up and down the stage like, well - like Iggy Pop.

Chuffed to see Jarvis Cocker wandering about among the plebs downstairs afterwards too, he’s a tall bloke.

Glastonbury Forecast

Oh deary me - it looks like this year’s Glastonbury might not be the driest they’ve had in recent years…

As I’m stuck at home while my aussie mate who told me he wasn’t going ’cause “he had such a good time last time he went and didn’t want to spoil the memory”, and my ex-wife are going (not together I hasten to add), I’m sure a little bit of rain wouldn’t hurt too much…
Hee hee.

I’m seeing The Stooges on Wednesday, and Jarvis Cocker on Saturday; both at the Royal Festival Hall where I’m assured it will be nice and dry…

The Cesarians

Hopefully going to catch this lot at Barden’s next week.

A Drive Out To Windsor

Yesterday, after our hangovers had lessened (we’d spent the evening drinking beside John Hegley in the ORL), and we’d been down Broadway Market to get some bread - and H. bought me a Kodak Box Brownie, we sat and wondered what to do with the rest of the day. Our mutual horoscopes said that we’d feel like we were wasting the day doing nothing, and we did.
After much persuing of Google Maps, ‘The Guide’, and Time Out we decided that since the weather was potentially messy a drive out in the car was in order and we decided to go to Windsor sometime around 3.30.
The traffic was terrible, and we very nearly ended up in Reading due to a TomTom miscalculation, but by the time we arrived, the skies had cleared and it had turned into quite a pleasant day. Deciding that it was too late to bother with the castle per se, we took a slow walk down ‘the long walk’, and back. I was amazed to see parakeets flocking in the trees, and H. was intimidated by a cow. Photos here.

On the return journey we passed Frederick Wheeler’s artist studios on Talgarth Road - we didn’t know what they were at the time of course, but we liked what we saw enough to Google them out on our return and create a new entry on Mr. Wheeler’s behalf on Wikipedia.

Sunday was spent wandering down Brick Lane, looking at the photographic exhibitions and calling into various retro clothes shops, where H. bought a bonzer new frock.

It’s me!

It’s me! with shorts on, beside a scary naked bloke!
I don’t look too impressed…

gente-londonnakedbikeride20075.jpg (JPEG Image, 1024×768 pixels)