Holding on to The Wire

If you read my post on Christmas wants or if you have seen me anytime in the last 5 months, you'll know my recent love is with THE WIRE. Perhaps I'm a bit late to the party but you have to remember, I have never subscribed to HBO and I live in the UK plus I have a pop culture blind spot as J tells me.

For Christmas, I received the 5th Season of the Wire. We watched it in about a week and even watched all the crap extras (they were crap). I have since researched the actors to see what they were doing now or who they were before The Wire. I found out that that McNulty (Dominic West) is actually English and Stringer Bell (Idris Elba) who I thought was from Hackney (my neighbourhood) is actually from Newham. In any case, yay for East London!

But now there's nothing - an emptiness. I yearn for more. So, on Monday when Joy came by my desk, I noticed her T-shirt. I had to have one and of course I did. Here is the one I got for me, but it was cuter and tighter (this is the boy version).
I thought as it was J's birthday I should get him something too. Having matching t-shirts is a bit lame so I bought him a type related one given he has his new typography blog.
So, now I feel I can keep my obsession with The Wire living just a little longer. Thanks to Joy for the tip.

Talent! Talent! Talent!

This video is jam packed with talented people. The film-maker, the actress, the stop-motion editor, the musician. If you don't like it, I would love to know why.

I discovered it through this amazing french blog called Fubiz. The guy who puts it together continues to find creative gems every day. I was visiting his site today and found this video and LOVED it. (how did I find Fubiz? Thanks to Shamir from Flickr)

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My Ever-Growing List of London Must Do's

Given it is January and it's time to start new habits and bin old ones, I decided to clear out our back office (interpret: shed). So far I've managed to clear out a stacks of Time Outs.

Every year when our subscription comes up for renewal, we discuss whether to renew it. My instant (frugal) reaction is NO. Then, we talk about how fabulous it is: jam-packed with great things to do, shows to see, music to discover. We both know we never manage to read more than an article let alone the whole thing.
J argues,

"but it is full of fantastic things to do. How will we keep up with what is hip in our adopted city?"

Then I point out what we typically do each weekend i.e. spend our time close to our hood, visiting our regular haunts and drinking in the same old pubs. Hmmm. Is there really a need for this weekly London Bible?

YES. We've decided to renew again. That means I have to make room for the onslaught of new issues. The old ones have got to go.

But maybe, we'll want to refer to the ideas from past issues?

Here's my solution. I'm going to keep track of those things that sound interesting here. Perhaps we'll use it to plan our weekends. Maybe, I'll even cross off the things we did - like My Santa List. Here goes (in no order whatsoever):

1. Dress up & dance in 1950s prom style at the Bethnal Green Working Man's Club
2. Tap dancing at Pineapple Dance Studios or Urdang Academy (still need to find some shoes at eBay)
3. Visit an exhibit at the Wellcome Institute
4. Go the Highgate Cemetary
5. Make it to the First Thursdays Art Night in East London. This should be easy given I work at Old Street tube.
6. J wants to the Imperial War Museum (What is the fascination with guys and war?)
7. Finally, make it to the Saatchi Gallery where perhaps I can see my friend (introduced via Burke), Matthew Carver's, piece on display. He had one of his graduate pieces bought by Saatchi.
8. Take a shoe-making course or better still a boot-making course (Tamsin at work has made a beautiful pair of shoes)
9. Dennis Sever's House. It is a step back to the early 1800's London. It sounds a little like the visit that the girls and I made to the Tenament Museum in NYC.
10. Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey
11. The British Museum has been said to be the best gallery/museum in London and I've never been.
12. Visit Buckingham Palace INSIDE. The Queen opens it up each summer and in 2010 there's a special exhibit.
13. Bike over and see the construction site of the 2012 Olympic Site.
    
14. MORE TO BE ADDED AS I WORK THROUGH THESE TIME OUTS. At least I've started.
    

I've slowly started to strike them out as I've done them.