May 2007
WUNDERKAMMERN

Thursday 31st May 2007
PARIS IN THE RAIN

A few days in Paris, merci boooocoup to Edward. We didn't let the rain deter us from our determination to make it to look at the queues for the Eiffel Tower.

Eventually of course we did give up in favour of a traditional Parisian bar and some cheap plonk.

mONDAY 28th May 2007
CHEESE ROLL

David Gest may be an egomaniacal waste of space, but 'his people' have good taste in web designers.

You can see this 21-metre sculpture of a naked man by Polish artist Pawel Althamer floating in Parco Sempione, Milan.

Saturday 19th May 2007
A DAY IN SOHO

Shantaram is a novel based on the life of the author, Gregory David Roberts - part memoir and part travelogue. In 1978 he was sentenced to nineteen years imprisonment for a series of armed robberies and drug offences. He then escaped from maximum-security prison, becoming one of Australia’s most wanted men.

The novel tells of his time in Bombay where, after meeting a local man named Prabaker, he learns Marathi (a language not often spoken by foreigners) and sets up a free health clinic in the slums where he gradually learns about the Indian culture. Life in the slum comes to an abrupt end when he is arrested and thrown into prison.

On his release, he moves from the slum and begins laundering money and forging passports for mafia don Abdel Khader Khan. He then goes on a quest to Afghanistan in order to smuggle weapons for the mujahideen.

Roberts has a compelling writing style and a real talent for completely drawing you into the narrative. You can almost hear the frantic jibber jabber of the street peddlers and chaotic traffic noise and breathe in the exhaust fumes intermingled with spices of the Bombay street market.

Don't mistake Shantaram for a bland travel journal. It's a rip-roaring thriller carefully constructed to keep you glued, page by page, as Roberts explores every human emotion through the course of his adventures.

Obviously the big cheeses in Hollywood have seen its potential - Warner Bros has bought the rights for the novel and Johnny Depp stars in a film which is due to be released next year. If you've read the book, you might find this talk by Roberts interesting.

I've recently started working for Piczo, the largest global social network for teenagers, so I've been acquainting myself with the vast array of networks springing up around the world.

And what an exciting socially-networked world it is. There's already a plethora of lists of the main social network sites knocking around, so below are one or two of the more unusual sites I came across in my quest to make friends that I'll never have to speak to.

Most of them will probably only survive for the next couple of weeks, so enjoy them while you can. If you come across any others that spark your interest, do drop me a line.

And if those aren't enough, then go here for just about everything else you can possibly imagine.

Do yourself a favour and get down to the cinema to see Shane Meadows' latest masterpiece, This is England.

This is England tells the story of Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), an isolated 12-year-old kid growing up without a father in the north of England. Set during the summer holidays of 1983, we watch his rites of passage from a shaggy haired ruffian grieving the loss of his father into a shaven headed tike whose anger and pain are embraced by the local skinhead fraternity.

The inspiration for this project came from Shane Meadows' own experience as a young skinhead growing up in the period in which the film is set.

Along the way, Shaun is bullied at school for his secondhand clothes and goes on to meets Combo (Stephen Graham), an older, racist skinhead who has recently got out of prison. As Combo’s gang harass the local ethnic minorities, the course is set for a rite of passage that will hurl Shaun from innocence to experience.

The film captures the mood of the time perfectly, as well as the allure of being part of a gang and the tribal suspicion of foreigners. Like all of Shane Meadows' films, the acting is faultless, with two particularly stunning performances from Stephen Graham and Thomas Turgoose - a kid who who was recruited from an amusement arcade to star in the film.

Click here to see the trailer, and here to see an interview with Shane Meadows on the Culture Show.

This is English cinema at its best - I doubt any films will surpass This is England this year. Go and see it.

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