Jolly Old London

The second you step on London ground, your schedule will be so stuffed that you´ll be basically running from one place to another. Let it be a vacation or just purely business, it´s all the same.

I spent a few good days mainly meeting with music industry people. An entire day listening to a publisher, record plugger, digital marketer, promoter etc. was like a crash course of my whole degree. No doubt it was educating. (Note: this sounded sarcastic, which is not the purpose.)

London is a special city in the sense of things to see and do. You can live there for your whole lifetime, and there would still be loads of places to visit. I had plans to do some graffiti hunting and go to the London Motor Museum (only 2,5 miles from HEATHROW), but sadly couldn´t. I even missed out on my favorite food stall in Camden.

Though this just means that I need to go there again sometime. In a better time. When neither I nor my friends would be busy with school or work that we could actually enjoy a pint or cuppa in peace. But I´m really happy to have seen them, especially my friend´s friend from Spain, who I met a couple of years earlier while in Holland. They are one of those people to whom you say "see you again", but you never really do. Exceptions are just the best, innit?

Anyways, enjoy these pics taken in the freezing city!

i loved dinosaurs as a kid, especially the stegosaurus

"let´s meet at the diana cafe, 100m east from the station", which way is east?

"east is where the sun rises", but you don´t see the sun here!

my only "graffiti hunt"

one of banksy´s works used to be here

but they cut the wall of and shipped it to america. douches.

give this back!

London calling. Again.

Just as I got to finish all my blog posts regarding London, another trip there was done. But this time it was all about being a complete tourist. And reliving stuff that I loved doing, which was mainly eating.

chicken bacon spinach jacket potato, former office food

my favorite food stall in whole camden...

...the place where i got home food

finally a proper fish & chips meal

chinese take away, extra spicy please. 

annual competition, this year i choose coconut

Of course the trip wasn't only about eating.

my favorite english beer

got this as a welcome present, for my friend's surprise it had finnish written on it

And with the touristic part.

thursday tesco time

We did some serious shopping at Harrods, the world's most famous department store. It's owned by the late Michael Jackson's good friend, which explains the story of Jackson being able to buy a monkey from there. The owner also owns Fulham Football Club, which has a statue of Jackson just outside the stadium. Also, his son died in the car crash, which took Princess Diana's life as well. I learned more about that place than I would have thought. The most interesting thing in the store itself was a £1 million Chardonnay wine collection. The bottle collection started already from the late 19th century. A few years were missing, but that's because during those years the wine grapes didn't meet the quality expectations Chardonnay had. Therefore, they got rid of the entire crop.

It was strange to be back in London, but at the same time it felt like I never left. Like a former colleague of mine said- London is one of those cities, which just stay the same. Although, on my first day a couple of people bumped into me and apologized. This is not the London I remembered.

Gig night at the Rattlesnake of Angel

February 1st, 2013

North London's Rattle Snake turned out to be a great place to go see unsigned up and coming music acts. When the live music isn't on, it's an even greater place to hear some 60s and 70s feelgood tunes.

The first to take the stage was Franco and the Dreadnought. It was about a year ago that I saw him live for the first time. Back then it was an intimate and relaxing acoustic session, now I got to hear him with the support of beats coming out of a Mac. Honestly, I do prefer the acoustic set, but on the other hand we got to see more of Franco's amazing guitar skills. Seriously, those agile fingers... I just wonder how many hours of practice he has put into it. Also, after many months of interacting through written words, it was truly a breeze of fresh air to speak face-to-face. You know it's been too long, when he tells me that the last time we spoke I had a British accent.

Listen to his music here.

It's no secret that the next act made me think "not another indie folk band", but Lloyd Yates and his crew managed to do something that I hadn't heard a folk act do yet- bring some proper rock into it. It was as refreshing as talking to Franco. By the way Franco loved Lloyd's hair.

Listen to my favorite song of his here and check out the do here.

With the blue lighting, Toby Connor gave us a bit of a chill atmosphere, but luckily his music didn't leave us cold! It reminded me of Live or Silversun Pickups with the 90s rock feeling in it.

Watch the great quality video below, you can even see blurry Franco passing by. In its literal meaning I mean.




Last but not least, the bluesy rock and roll hero JJ Symon. He really had people taking over the dance floor, some even looked like they were at aerobics class. No doubt it was a perfect ending for a lively evening.

Listen to his songs here.

Icing on the cake.

Gunners and The Reds

As soon as I arrived in London for a quick vacation, I was immediately rushed from one place to another. Though, this time one of my childhood dreams came true, when I got to see a match of the biggest football league in the world- the Premier League. Also, it wasn't any match, as my favorite and obviously the greatest English team took on an "alright" London team at their packed Emirates stadium. But of course no (big) stadium compares to our Anfield.

The ticket was a complete rip off, but I thought what the heck- you don't graduate too often. I'm glad I went, since Red legend, vice-captain Jamie Carragher announced he'd be retiring after this season. It was a rare treat to see him on pitch, and consider myself lucky to do have done so in all Liverpool matches I've gone to.

The team, on the other hand, wasn't too lucky. We lost our 2 goal lead within 3 minutes, but that's better than losing the whole match. And I finally got to see future legend Suarz play!

in brendan we trust

vamos suarez

arsenal's legendary manager wenger

living legends stevie g & carra