london

The William Kentridge show at the Royal Academy is incredibly brilliant by the way. When I went into the first room I thought WTF these are just boring charcoal drawings but it turns out to be a million times more than that, I've been once and I'm going again, at least once more.

oh this is good to know! Where does Lyle's fit into this? I see their lunch menu is cheaper, is that worth making time for as well?

If you visit the Kentridge, try to time it so you can see the puppet shows that are on at 20 past the hour every hour (I didn't but I will next time).

The Michael Craig Martin show at Alan Cristea also great, I laughed and laughed. Pop art takes on great works of art is in no sense a new idea but these really pop.

If you can catch "This Is Not Dying" by Nova Paul, a piece of video art showing at Phyllida Reid on Grape Street (a back street near the top of Shaftesbury Avenue, you will be seeing the best piece of video art I've seen in forever (The fourth para here does a decent job of desribing the technique: http://www.thirdtext.org/?location_id=637 ). The problem is it's on a two hour loop playing in the basement of the gallery so AFAICT it is not possible to tell whether you will see it when you arrive at the gallery. Perhaps the other stuff on the loop is just as good, I don't know.

Lyle's is somewhere between the two, less austere than either, more restauranty than Maltby St, a touch more modern european/less organ meaty than St John. (Not that St John will force feed you tripe or anything). I like Lyle's a lot, I'd say it has more in common with the kind of excellent restaurant I'd be unsurprised to find in Chicago than either of the others has.

When we have American visitors to is Kiln (on Brewer Street in Soho) which is Thai, specifically northern Thai and not really anything like the Thai cuisine I'm used to. It's consistently fantastic; no idea whether it's the kind of thing you could find in Philly, though physically the restaurant would be recognisable to hipsters across the globe, stripped down brick and dining sitting up at the bar. So great, don't miss the stir-friend greens and soy, which doesn't sound exciting but is unbelievable.

That is supposed to read "when we have American visitors I want to impress, a place I generally take them to is..."

nearly went to kiln yesterday. didn’t.

more exciting posting like that whenever you like.

Is Kiln worth visiting even if you have a let's say sensitive stomach?

Yes - the staff will help you swerve the things that are likely to be troublesome, for whatever reason.

another question: where is a great place to do Sunday roast, ideally like relatively straightforward and not too much of a fancy/expensive reinterpretation? Places Eater recommends sort of close to where we're staying incl Harwood Arms, Canton Arms, and Hawkswood, and then farther out are Quality Chop House, Marksman, and Blacklock?

i really don’t know that part of town at all

Harwood Arms is pretty expensive, even compared to places like The Marksman. All the options you mentioned are good, if you want a straightforward roast which doesn’t do anything fancy but does everything well then Blacklock is hard to beat.

Also if you were thinking of going to St John I would suggest either going to Bread and Wine, or (a better option) having dinner at Quality Wines and then going for rarebit, pud and booze at the bar at St John. If you’re in Kensington, Hereford Road is relatively close and does a great impression of St John without the hype.

I’ve never been there myself for Sunday lunch but I’ve heard from friends that Hawksmoor does a good and well priced one. Think the Borough one is probably nearest to you?

xp yes we booked Saturday lunch at St. John B&W, which from what I am reading is just as good as (if not better) than the OG location

Definitely better these days, good choice

Camberwell Arms does a nice weekend lunch

Hawksmoor has always been esolidly excellent when I've gone there, as a treat, which I haven't in years (parenthood). My partner swears by the Quality Chop House.

Hawksman it is! Also it's only 25gbp which seems really inexpensive for a huge meat roast????

interesting detail: the same company that built the Berlin #aquarium that just burst also did the Nine Elms sky pool everyone hates

— Alex Harrowell (@yorksranter) December 16, 2022

I’ve seen that Berlin aquarium! Fucked up.

lol stayed there a couple of months ago for a work conference. they had a robot drinks room service machine called jeeves which i wanted to test out but when we were drunk we hit a few of its buttons and it said “OUT OF SERVICE” for the rest of the stay.

on your side lil fella.

i googled the nine elms sky pool and it's like an outrageous parody of parasitic luxury development, i don't know whether to laugh or cry

it also looks absolutely terrifying.

it should be safely taken down with a controlled explosion, preferably when it's full of rich bastards!

assassination co-ordinates easily found on google!

i feel like a good movie abt the modern city deserted after the great eco-social catastrophe shd include a scene w/a sky pool all busted and forlorn and covered in toxic algae -- this is why i don't much mind "emblems of social inequality", social changes will change the meaning !!

SKY POOL SKULL PILES COLLAPSE
controversial ilxor calzino is in the news once more etc etc

there was a program on ch4 I think roughly roundabout about 2008, about what the world would look like post-humanity. Like how long before all the structural steel in skyscrapers starts oxidising and falling apart etc etc. It was bad not good with terrible cgi and corny nat geographic voiceover but I did enjoy it at the time.

was it this? with pete postlethwaite?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pft7f

no, I have seen that one as well. This one was purely about showing how long it takes buildings and infrastructure to turn into ruins. Even the Hoover Dam eventually fails and crumbles to pieces iirc

Life After People?

it might be, but there seems loads of episodes of that and I think this was a one-off. Or maybe it was condensed into one ep.

yeah I just checked + that was the one broadcast on ch4 at the time, it wasn't a one-off so perhaps one episode was enough.. lol

I think I saw the first episode and thought "So without humans around, everything falls into shit? Yay, we're awesome!!!" and then didn't watch any more episodes.

speaking of such matters, in the SF podcast ep that tracer and i did with ilxor 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek) a long age ago -- abt arthur c.clark's short story "the forgotten enemy" -- there is a line something like "on london's horizon something glittered in the mountains to the north", which reminds us that london's tall yet overlooked enemy has always in fact been primrose hill

less than 2 months until we're being kicked out by our landlord as he's selling. have put absurd amounts of energy into trying to find somewhere. no closer. if we haven't secured anything after the 3 viewings we have tomorrow it's close to panic stations. london rental market is unbelievably fucked and we're a childless dual-income couple in our 30s so it's yet more fucked for others. inching ever closer to team guillotine here lads

i thought this was meant to ease, not least because of all the people leaving because of brexit, followed by all the people leaving because they are now remote workers.

(my neighbour's rent was just put up by 17%)