highlights

after a month or so spent in London, here's a short compilation of some of the things I've seen and done since arriving. The music is by Loney, Dear.

Jackass (no, for real)

In light of Londonist's post today on the moronic ski stunt pulled by some extreme-sports dude at Angel station, with which I agree 100% (the post, not the stunt), I thought I'd give an example of a similar exploit witnessed on camera that is actually funny, if you're into that juvenile, kinda-dangerous drunken tomfoolery stuff. And truly, who isn't?

throw away your television

it is an inescapable fact that television is now THE main source in entertainment in any household. Sure, people still go out to plays, read books and sometimes might even play some Hungry Hungry Hippos, but in most houses TV is just turned on all the time now. Not having one currently, probably for the first time in my life, I have realized that not only do I not mind, I don't really miss it. Despite never having been a huge TV watcher, I've done my fair share of it over the years. But the truth is that nowadays I have a perfectly acceptable substitute in my computer. Sure it's only got a 13-inch screen, so I'll never be able to plop down on a couch eight feet away and enjoy a movie, but in my room, it's great. Pretty much all of my video-watching needs are covered, and it should only get better in the years ahead:

Movies:
with online DVD-rental services, movie lovers have thousands of titles at their disposal, generally much more than at their local rental spots. Personnally I use lovefilm, with a service plan that allows me unlimited rentals, with 2 DVDs out at any given time. I've thus been able to watch a mix of never-seen classics and new releases. The monthly price of £12.99 seems even more worth it when you consider that that's what a weekend seat at a Leicester Square movie theater costs. I'm not joking, I went to see 300 this Saturday and the seat was £13.
But the real future of this area is in the offering of movies through online stores. Lovefilm offers the service, with the possibility to rent for £2.99 (meaning a download which allows you to view the movie for a 24-48 hr period) or buy for £9.99 (you keep the download forever). Other sites have different formulas, but the common problem with these services is the DRM which prevents some users, say those with a Mac OS, from using them. For my part I'm waiting for iTunes to offer movies on its store, as it does in the US, although there it's only buy-to-own for now.

TV shows:
As a huge fan of certain shows (Lost, The Office...) and having lived in the US, I have never liked the long delays that it takes for these shows to be shown abroad, if they are at all. In France it was ever worse as many times they were dubbed. And we all know dubbing is one of the deadly sins. So for this I had to use the Internet to "acquire" my favorite dramas and comedies in a timely fashion. That way I can watch them when I want, even where I want since I do so on my laptop.
Again, TV shows can be bought in the US iTunes store, but not abroad, seemingly for rights issues. When they will, I would love to get a season pass for my favorites, and keep watching them on my computer.

News:
This is a recent discovery of mine: major news organizations now provide video podcasts which enable anyone with Internet access and a podcast application, like iTunes, to receive some of their programs. Right now I've got daily podcasts from a variety of sources, both French and foreign (iTele, LCI, NBC News, BBC morning edition, M6) which give me a pretty comprehensive roundup of the day's news. Now if only more broadcasters, like Arte with their fantastic Arte News, would offer their programs this way.

shine on

today was a glorious one, for this was the day I was able to wear shorts outdoors for the first time in 2007. The sun was blazing, the wind not too brisk for once, and my weekend hangover gone (goshdarn calvados), thus all conditions met for London to enjoy the sight of my oh-so pristine legs for the first time. No, don't thank me, really, I insist.

Also, I hit up the Abercrombie store this weekend, to see if it would remind me of the countless establishments I visited in yesteryears. Well, apart from the fresh-faced Dawson's extras working as staff, it was no dice on the nostalgia for me. A very prestigious location that was barely advertised on the outside, a near-dark interior, and LOUD thumping dance music had me wondering whether I'd mysteriously wandered into one of those shady Camden stores. Still, I'm a sucker for buying stuff, so I did end up getting a pair of jeans and a shirt. Self-control, what's that?

press, fold, repeat

part of the appeal of moving to a new city, for me, was to change my lifestyle. Living in the same apartment, with the same roomies, for 3 years gave me some pretty regular habits. Not that I'd do the same thing every single weekend (that would be hard and kinda sad in a city like Paris), but I had my supermarket, my bar, my Italian "traiteur", and so on. Moving to London was definitely an opportunity to change all that and get some new habits. Right now I'm at a time where I'm looking to explore as much as I can, but it's always good to know what secrets your neighborhood holds. You know, finding a great Thai restaurant or an indie music store just a couple of blocks from your place for those lazy Sunday strolls. And speaking of lazy, I very quickly decided that I wasn't going to do any laundry anymore, save the occasional gym clothes load. So I quickly made an appraisal of my various possibilities and found this place where I can drop a bag off in the morning and get it back at the end of the day, all clean and fresh and folded (although I refold the clothes since they tend to do it in a weird way that's not very cupboard-friendly).
So basically every week or fortnight (if I'm feeling resilient) I give them this:
And then for £6-8, I get back my smelly clothes all fresh and clean anew:

Hooray for financially-empowered laziness.

forever young

as must have been apparent to anyone hanging out in Central London recently, Abercrombie & Fitch is opening a store on Savile Row today, and to mark the occasion has plastered many a double deckers with prominent posters announcing the event. True to the brand ethos, the ad features a shirtless young man turning his back to us, I guess because when you're an "edgy" brand like A&F, you like to defy social conventions like it ain't no thing.
As the premier purveyors of preppy teenage chic, A&F have been big in the States for a while now, so I guess it was to be expected for them to explore these shores one day. After all, as crappy Hollywood actioners have shown, it's not the quality of your product that matters, as long as you find new countries to sell it in. Not to say Abercrombie products are bad, they're definitely a step above American Eagle, Gap and other competitors, but haute-couture this is not, despite the ever-increasing prices. Having been a high schooler in the US, I know how powerful the brand is in the coveted youth market, power from which it derives most of its value. I'm sure Ralph Lauren, that other supplier of preppiness, would love to have Abercrombie's image, as it is seen as rather dowdy, to say the least.
A&F has been criticized in the past for being a bit too image-conscious, sometimes relegating people who fit less with their brand image (i.e. not fit, teethy and, um, white) to the back of stores. The brand bases a lot of its marketing on sex-appeal, be it through regular ad campaigns of shirtless young guys (see: any double-decker on Regent Street right now) or girls in skimpy outfits, as well as through its annual Christmas calendar, with its SHOCKING photos of quasi-nude models. Seeing as how this brand is geared toward teenagers, you can imagine how that might not please everyone in mainstream USA. Cue the yearly CNN reports about A&F's calendar and the various Christian organizations making their statements and you get a good example of the sex sells adage. Not to mention a few other scandals like having offensive slogans on tee-shirts.
But for now there's just this one store in the whole of Europe, so we'll see if it works well enough for the expansion to go on. I suspect it will, seeing as how kids these days seem to be used to spending massive amounts of money on their clothing. As for me I'll definitely be making a visit to the store soon, and see if they'll be able to make me buy one of their hoodies so I can feel like I'm dressing "young". Nostalgia is a powerful thing, that's for sure.

southern comfort

back in 2001 I spent three months in London for an internship, months during which I barely got to explore the city due to a pretty heavy workloads (night-sessions, weekends). But I still had a lot of fun, due to being part of a team of interns, all French, most of whom I actually lived with. Since we spent so much time at the office, we had to rely on our neighborhood restaurants for most of our meals. Thankfully that aspect was not a problem, however we often went back to the same places, namely a thai restaurant and an italian eatery. The latter was called Bar Remo, and I still have fond memories of us 5 going to pick up our orders with the head waitress saying "ciao" and "thank you bello" to us.

Over the past years I've come back to London regularly, and made a point to visit these old haunts, in part due to nostalgia, but really because when it comes to simple, kind-of affordable food in that area (Oxford Circus), the pickings can be pretty slim. Making a permanent move here last month provided me with a renewed sense of newcomerness, and coming to Bar Remo for a quick bite has been one of the things that has allowed me to quickly feel at home in this tremendous city. Though some of the staff has changed, they're still as nice as always, the tuna melt tastes as great as back then, and the old pictures of soap stars on the walls haven't moved. These past few weeks I've been going every Saturday for lunch, generally after running some quick errands (located on Princes Street just off Regent Street, you can't beat that), and it feels like the tradition we had in 2001 might just get replaced by a new one. Because truthfully, who doesn't like being called "bello" while entering a familiar place?

Bar Remo

sound advice 3 - Jeremy Larson

once upon a time I tried to use the full power of the Internet to discover new music. Scouring mp3 blogs, myspace and amazon.com listmanias (wait, is it listmanii?) were almost like a full-time hobby, and being the kind of fellow who enjoys his social life as much as his eyesight, I quickly realized this was not something a working man could do seriously. I guess there's a reason why many of those mp3 blogs are tended to by college students.
But my love for discovering new music never went away, of course, so I just took my searches down a notch or three, and enjoyed the bands and artists I found that much more. One brilliant example of that is today's focus. I came across one of Jeremy Larson's songs on some random TV show and after listening to the guy's myspace, knew I had something special on my hands.
Hailing from Springfield, MO (no, I don't know where that is either. I'm afraid the closest I've ever been to the Midwest is suburban Chicago), Jeremy Larson uses his classical music performance background in pieces that are sometimes subdued but always vivid. Listening to track like Today or The Thief, there's a sense that he likes layers (with the piano as the main instrument) and enjoys seeing how these various sounds can play together, while still remaining mostly within the familiar canons of pop. Speaking of familiar, the piano riff on Make Believe sounds very much like Elephant Parade by Jon Brion off the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Yet to me it seems more like a winking homage than a rip-off. Elephant Parade is a gorgeous 26-second interlude, and Jeremy Larson sounds like a fan who wanted to see what he could come up with for a 4 minute pop tune.
With the release of his debut album scheduled for 2007, this guy could be one of the good finds of the year. He doesn't have any dates planned yet, but here's hoping that touring will be on the cards for him, especially if he manages to come to Europe for a few shows.

official site
myspace
youtube: live performance of Today

I don't know what to say to that

the internet is pretty awesome, everybody knows it. And everyday, we get more proof of it. In today's watershed example, we have people collaborating to answer the age old question:
does masterbation (sic) make you lose weight?

By the way, if you're looking for more unabashed fun, check out Yahoo! Answers' section on dating. Random and weird, yes, but also quite useful.

routine lunch

okay, so mayyyybe the brownie wasn't necessary

something old, something new

although not a music expert by any means, I've come to listen to a lot of music over the years, and appreciate a wide variety of style and artists. As a child of the 80s I have fond memories of the first cassette album I bought (the Dick Tracy soundtrack, score one for artistic integrity), but as the digital revolution has accelerated in recent years, I've also appreciated the ease with which we can now listen, buy and share our music pretty much anywhere. As such I've always been a big fan of peer to peer, as it allows me to listen to stuff before deciding to plunk down some hard-earned cash for it. Of course the whole peer to peer debate is full of grey areas, as it should be, considering how different uses there can be of it. For instance I know people who do not buy any CDs at all, when they would purchase at least one a month before they got into P2P. Myself I consider that if the music is good, the artists/band deserves the money, whatever opinion I may have of the current music distribution system, and also I like to have some sort of physical backup of my music, not just bytes floating accumulating on my hard drive.
My love for music has caused me to frequent many a record stores, and work in one even, but I'd never been truly satisfied with the options offered in Paris. Sure, if you get away from the main merchants some stores are pretty good (Gibert, for one), but I never understood how in the 21st century many CDs were not available because they had not been officially released in France. Sometimes you'd find an (overpriced) import, most times not. So I'd keep going from time to time to these sonic establishments, but more out of habit than from expecting to find that new CD from this indie Canadian band I'd heard of on the net. Mostly I'd order online, through Amazon's vendor system, because it was cheaper, and when you spend as much on music as I do, that kind of thing counts. A lot.
But since moving to the UK I have rediscovered my inner music nerd, going to record stores (or shops, as they say here), talking to the sales clerks and other expressions of tomfoolery. Music is adored here, truly, and by a great deal of people. Here, indie doesn't really mean anything anymore because the Kaiser Chiefs or Bloc Party can, and do, top the charts. People invest themselves in music, as a way to develop their identity probably, which is exactly the sort of quasi-pathetic behavior I exhibit.
And since I'm a big fan of well-stocked chain record stores, I'm pretty much in heaven here. HMVs and Virgin Megastores everywhere, this feels like NYC all over again. One thing I've started doing is checking out the new releases (every Monday they update it with new stuff. crazy!), and if I have the time I do so on Monday. HMV Mondays, I call it, because when you're a consumerist, or at least a pretend-one, you need spiffy labels to justify your irrational need to accumulate earthly possessions. I actually get the feeling that one of these days I'll actually buy a CD from that new releases section, without having listened to it beforehand. Kinda like what I used to do in the olden days. Pretty cool, I think, although I'm not missing the cassette format, and never ever will.