The Mercury Prize (or rather Barclaycard Mercury Prize): where the big dogs of the music biz pick one album from 12 shortlisted artists to make us realise how little we know about music and how we should always listen to them about which albums we should be buying.

Now in its nineteenth year, the Mercury’s are something of an institution in the British music scene, rounding up the best in new and undervalued UK bands and giving them the chance to win £20,000 to help them break into the commercial market.

Yet, with Mumford & Sons, Laura Marling, Corinne Bailey Rae, The XX, Wild Beasts, Foals and former winner Dizzee Rascal amongst the nominees, 2010’s list is less plucked from obscurity, as has come to be expected from the Mercury’s, and more selected from the artists and albums we’ve already been buying. As a result, we have a relatively controversy free shortlist; that is if we ignore the absence of hotly tipped Gorillaz’s Plastic Beach. Or in my opinion M.I.A and Hot Chip…

Listening to the nominated albums is a fine testament to the new maturity and musical prowess that has replaced the all too generic rough-and-ready indie bands that have bombarded the charts for too long. With the exception of Dizzee and Biffy Clyro, 2010’s shortlist offers a more sedate and wholesome representation of UK music. Reverting to stripped down sounds, like the serenely intense The XX, a reinvention of the hoedown with the Mumford boys and classical operatic vocals with soaring guitars from Wild Beasts, 2010 has produced some corkers. But we already knew that…because we already bought the albums.

Call me cynical but with such big names nominated, it seems unlikely this year’s wildcards, Villagers and the Kit Downes Trio – the standard anomalous jazz record – will even get a look in. Villagers’ Becoming a Jackal has garnered comparisons to Neil Young and Bright Eyes for Irish front man Conor J O’Brien, with his quiet intensity and immeasurable talent, playing all the instruments on the album himself. Continuing the Mercury’s love- in but failure to deliver with jazz, the Kit Downes Trio’s Golden is perhaps the most obscure album on the list. Having collaborated with Micachu and Acoustic Ladyland, pianist Kit Downes is already renowned in London’s underground jazz circuit and so a kick from the Mercury Prize could be set to finally break jazz into the mainstream.

But is winning the Mercury Prize the golden ticket to success it purports to be? Remember last year’s winning album, Speech Therapy by Speech Debelle? Me neither. Selling only 10,000 copies in the two months after the ceremony, the infamous Mercury Prize curse was back with a vengeance. Then again, east Londoner Dizzee Rascal’s 2003 win for Boy in Da Corner didn’t do his commercial success any harm…

If I am to offer my humble opinion, my vote is going to stay local and go with London band The XX, not because they need the £20,000 to help their careers but because for me they represent what the kind of original music the Mercury’s once stood for. But my fingers are still crossed that 2010 might be the year for that lonely jazz record…

The winner of the Barclaycard Mercury Prize 2010 will be announced on Tuesday 7 September.

Image by gabriel “gab” pinto courtesy of Flickr

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

The Mercury Prize 2010

For someone looking to forge a career in food, moving from France to London at the beginning of the Nineties seems like a crazy step to take. However, it has more than worked out for Eric Lanlard.

Not only can he be seen on television, judging and giving advice on GMTV and Masterchef, he presents his own show on Channel 4, Glamour Puds. This programme is dedicated to his love of desserts. In addition to his public appearances, he runs the Cake Boy shop in south-west London; a retail outlet, but it also boasts a very popular cookery school. The London Word caught up with him ahead of the release of his second book, Home Baking.

What is your background in producing food?

‘Ever since I was a child I wanted to make cakes. I trained in Brittany and did my apprenticeship in Quemper. During my national service, I was a pastry chef in the navy and we toured around a lot of places, spending a lot of time in America. After those two years, I was offered a job by the well known restauranters Albert and Michel Roux in London. I thought it would be a good place to learn and study English for a year. And then that year became five years and I have ended up staying for 21 years.’

Your book is called Home Baking. Is this where you first learned to cook?

‘Yes, that’s right. My parents were not the best cooks. They didn’t have a lot of time to spend on food as they were always very busy. But at the weekend, they made an effort to have a good family meal with everyone sat down and enjoying amazing food. My dad used to drive to the local patisserie and that was my inspiration, the concept of the shop, with everything laid out in such a beautiful way.’

What is it about pastries and cakes that attracts you over other dishes?

‘For me, it’s the decoration and the presentation that goes into making cakes that makes them special. It’s not that I have a sweet tooth, I have never had a sweet tooth but it’s the work and finishing that goes into the cakes. My parents tell me that when I was going through the cookbooks, I would always try and attempt the most complicated recipes. I would be making marzipan flowers whilst they were struggling with the basics.’

You moved to London 21 years ago. Why?

‘I was offered a job here and it seemed to be the perfect place to learn English. I only planned on spending a short time here but it’s now my home.’

You run the Cake Boy baking school. What sorts of people do you find enlisting?

‘It’s a real mixture of ages and genders. We get housewives, house husbands and a lot of young people coming in. They do cooking as a past-time and want to learn something new and a few specialities.’

You’ve been here for over 20 years. What changes have you seen in the culinary scene during that time?

‘Since I’ve been here, there have been some amazing changes. Everything has become a lot more specialised. When I first came here, I was shocked at the standards, everything was done using very old fashioned methods. For the first couple of weeks, I just keep thinking, “I’ve got to get out of here”. But I stayed on and started changing things and the improvement over the past couple of decades has been amazing.’

Where do you live in London?

‘I live in between Wandsworth Common and Clapham Common. It means that it’s very useful for getting to work in the morning.’

What do you like to do to relax?

‘I like to eat, I like the theatre and I enjoy entertaining friends. I have a modern house and it’s fantastic for having nice dinner parties. When I go out to eat I like going to local restaurants. I am normally quite tired after work so I don’t go to places where I have to dress up and wear a tie. I’m just very lucky that this side of the river, there are some fantastic local places to go and eat.’

Eric’s book, Home Baking, is published by Mitchell Beazley and costs £20.

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

Chef Eric Lanlard

I’ve always been a bit wary of polls: ones conducted to find the best sitcom, the most annoying couple or the most excruciating injury ever suffered while gardening. It’s the floundering attempt to impose a definitive order on things which are meant to be enjoyed for their inherent qualities rather than their ability to be filed in line.

Can you really compare Is This It? by the Strokes to The Velvet Underground’s first album? Or definitively say that The Shawshank Redemption is a superior piece of art to The Bicycle Thieves?

I was thinking on this issue as I entered Clos Maggiore, a restaurant consistently voted as the most romantic restaurant in London. But how can you properly establish the qualities which constitute romance? Were the judges noting the amount of soft light that dapples the cheeks of the diners? Or calculating the amount of time spent gazing into each other’s eyes as the mounting passion between two people begins to surge and then multiply that by the number of occasions of footsie?

Perhaps I was wrong to concentrate on this particular facet of Clos Maggiore, a restaurant that has won a slew of awards since opening. Soon after starting on our food, my companion and I came to realise that the people handing out these awards are no fools.

I started with the shoulder of rabbit with sweet and sour black radish with wholegrain mustard mousseline, while my companion went for the chargrilled scallops. The rabbit was a delight, presented like a toffee apple. The meat peeled off and made for a sumptuous combination with the mousseline. My companion was equally effusive about the scallops, which were extremely juicy whilst avoiding any kind of overbearing saltiness.

An excess of salt rather hindered the main course of rib-eye steak, which was taken by both of us. The meat was of an excellent quality although it was betrayed by the accompanying fondant potatoes and oyster mushrooms, which had a little too much salt.

To finish off, my companion had a selection of sorbets whilst I ventured for an olive oil and lemon tiramisu, simply for the intrigue of how they would manage to accomplish the dish. In the end, it was quite pleasant; the smoothness of the olive oil competing well against the subtle lemon flavours. However, in spite of the curiousity factor, it didn’t have the richness of an orthodox tiramisu.

As for romance, it was hard to rouse much in the way of ardour after such a heavy meal. I sat back in my seat, unable to manage a single bat of an eyelid. Clos Maggiore comes highly recommended if you are after sumptuous cuisine. However, at around £75 per head, if you’re taking someone along on a date, make sure that it’s love.

Clos Maggiore
33 King Street
Covent Garden
WC2E 8JD

Tel: 020 7379 9696

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Covent Garden’s Clos Maggiore

Flying into London from Stockholm, I watch our gradual descent over the capital towards Heathrow airport. I’m returning home but all I can think about is where and when my next trip will be. Which is the next foreign city I can tick off my list?

I blame London for my all-too-familiar thought pattern. The city may look like a toy town from way up here, but the extent of choices we’re faced with and the extremes of culture available can often be overwhelming. It would be impossible to sample every single cultural offering this city plays host to. But no matter how much I try to do these days, it never seems enough. There’s this insatiable part of my mind that keeps telling me to do more, read more, travel more. Consequently, I forever end up trying to do too much and never feel satisfied at the end of it.

And yet, I don’t want my life to be one big ‘to do’ list. It’s all very well having an appetite for culture and experiencing the world, but what kind of pleasure can be garnered from always focusing on the next thing and ignoring the present?

According to a therapist friend of mine, my thought pattern is not an uncommon one, especially among those living in big cities. What she told me was that instead of focusing on trying to do everything that London has to offer, I should give more quality time and energy to the fewer things I really love, like discovering a hidden vintage shop or walking through Dulwich park. Not to try and read every book that has ever been written, but to identify the authors or genres I like the best.

I can recognise this as perfectly sound advice, but it’s not a way of thinking that comes naturally to me. I’ll have to consciously follow it for a while, but hopefully it won’t be long until it becomes a second nature. In the meantime, here are some top tips I’ve found on enjoying the present and not letting the enormity of London take over…

• Make a list of the things in your life that give you the most pleasure – be it gardening, modern art or spending time with your family – and focus more of your time on that
• Learn that you don’t have to be doing something all the time. Book a night in your diary every week just for you, when you don’t go out but go home and spend some quality time alone, doing nothing
• Keep a thank you diary, where you note down the positive things that happened to you each day
• Discover something new about the area where you live. You might realise that you don’t have to venture as far to experience the hidden gems of London as you might think.

Image by Paul McGhie

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

Living in the London Moment

All across the capital, school children are stocking up on stationery, parents are planning healthy packed lunches and teachers are hoping not to be lumbered with the class of disruptive kids. Yes folks, it’s September.

Having lived my entire childhood life in the confines of a little Yorkshire village, it never ceases to surprise me to see so many schools in the centre of London. They sort of just spring into view during term time in between office blocks and next door to shopping centres. It may seem a bizarre observation to some, but to one whose commute to primary school consisted of a two-minute skip across a cow field, seeing boater-clad infants on my bus to work is a real novelty.

Nowadays, however, being a fully-fledged urbanite, I don’t just work next to a school. I can go one better: my office has become one. Sort of. For a full school year now, the reception class of a prestigious West End primary has occupied the ground floor of the publishing group where I while away my working week. And pretty soon they will be back again to commence autumn term, shouting and screeching and pressing the intercom button to the top floors…just for fun…

The tiny troop return every day to their actual school, located three metres away, for their lunch break. This has to be executed in a safe and orderly fashion, and usually involves the children skipping out two-by-two in a painstakingly unhurried crocodile formation. Despite my best efforts, it also tends to coincide with my own lunch hour and results in a good ten minutes of said hour stood impatiently watching the crocodile slink its way in and out of my building.

I want to barge past them, as I would slow pavement walkers on Oxford Street, but they are so miniature and cute that this proves impossible. I would also end up being lynched by the semi-famous parents who assemble at 3:30 pm every afternoon to gather up their offspring.

That’s another thing – hearing them all clatter down the stairs to freedom at 3:30 pm is so painful! And not because they make loads of noise when I’m on deadline and in need of quiet. More because I simply wish I was skipping down the stairs with them, home to a sumptuous meal that probably involves avocado and crayfish, and out to play in the gated garden with Barny and Poppy.

I may moan and chide their presence in our office, but in reality, I think it’s safe to say that I’m simply jealous that they get to sing and draw pictures all day in the same building that I have to relentlessly sit and bash out words. In fact, seeing these tiny people around the office is actually quite refreshing. It kinda helps put that 4 pm deadline panic into perspective when you see an eager little face stretching her hand out to the child that’s lagging behind at the end of the crocodile, telling him to ‘hurry up, Charlie, we’re going to be late for PE!’ Perhaps I should start practicing my patient face before autumn term officially begins.

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

Back to School

A dystopian world, after a violent revolution, where all but state-sanctioned music has been banned…is the setting of Ben Elton’s Queen behemoth We Will Rock You, right?

It’s also the world where Broken Glass Theatre Company have set Paul McCartney is Dead, but it is at that point where the two plays part company.

Instead of stadium rock anthems, the audience is plunged into a world of paranoia and conspiracy theories, where lies are more comforting than the truth could ever be.

As their neighbours disappear, suddenly and mysteriously, two brothers, Paul and Simon, await their own relocation by the sinister new leaders, called the Corporation.

Simon, played by Steve King, is haunted by lost love for Amber (Imogen Goodman) but Luke Surl, playing his brother Paul, gets the more interesting part.

Obsessed with what is lost, Paul preserves fragments of his former existance in chemical filled jars, and only comes to life when retelling the conspiracy theory that Paul McCartney was once killed in a car crash and replaced by a lookalike.

The importance that he places on this story, in a world where The Beatles can’t even be listened to, in  the face of real menace at their doorstep, is key to the play’s hopelessness. When uncertainty reigns, any truth matters, even one that’s false.

The story is pieced together by the brothers’ delightfully unhinged housemate Libby, played brilliantly by a haunting Louisa Coward, who learns of the brothers’ past by their confused memories and ghostly visitors. Her fractious and at times playful relationship with Paul is the most engaging in the show, while that between the two brothers is more undeveloped.

Cast members playing of the foreboding Corporation, who double as clairvoyant Libby’s ghostly harbingers, have smaller roles but make their presence felt throughout the play, setting the ominous tone perfectly. 

They, along with the clever choice of setting at The Rag Factory, made stark and claustrophobic with heavy black drapes, means a sense of unease reverberates through space and the audience can never feel truly comfortable.

Non-linear and just an hour long, it is impossible to get to grips with the reality of the trio’s circumstances and the audience are left to fill in the blanks, knowing just fractions of the truth, just like the characters themselves.

This is not a play that spoon feeds its audience instead, Paul McCartney is Dead, is uncompromising and full of complex ideas.

The antidote to We Will Rock You and its superficially flashy West End neighbours, Broken Glass are producing fringe theatre that’s bold and ambitious, and are well worth keeping an eye out for.

Paul McCartney is Dead finished on Monday 30 August and was showing at:

The Rag Factory
Unit 2, 37 Heneage Street
Spitalfields
E1 5LJ

www.brokenglassplay.co.uk

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

Paul McCartney is Dead

I am an addict. Last Friday I nervously made my way to the Groom lash lounge at Selfridges, knowing full well what I was letting myself in for.

The moment I was on the chaise longue, a beautician gently tickling my eyes by carefully placing extensions on each of my lashes, I knew I was hooked. After around an hour, drifting off every so often to be woken by the gentle tug of a lash, I was allowed to open my eyes and it felt like it was for the first time.

As I gazed into the mirror I caught a glimpse of my life from now on. Throwing away my mascara, I’d be able to go out all night and still look bright eyed the next day.

Groom is so easy too. Booking my appointment was a breeze. I opted for a subtle, but still impressive, half set of lashes which set me back £80 – a full dramatic set costs a cool £150. These last for around four to six weeks depending on how often your lashes fall out. The helpful beauticians told me all about maintenance top ups, which start at around £45 and are needed every month or so to ensure your lashes are at their tip top best.

This just seems like a no brainer for those off on holiday or heading to a wedding where they don’t want to have the danger of smudged and running mascara and want a no fuss stunning look. It’s also a luxury that, if you can afford it, would just be pure heaven to keep touching up. It really is unbelievable the difference these lashes make to your face, brightening up your eyes and making them look fuller and sexier.

Every time I catch myself in a shop window or see a flash of lashes in the bathroom mirror my heart races. What was life like before Groom? I can hardly remember. In reality they are going to fall out sooner or later. Then I’ll have to make the choice. Beauty or the bank. I have a feeling, as long as these lashes make my eyes look so luscious, I won’t be in a good state of mind to make the sensible decision.

Groom at Selfridges
400 Oxford Street
Marylebone
W1A 1AB

Tel: 020 7499 1199

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

Totally Addicted to Groom

Secret streets? In London – one of the most well-trodden cities in the world? What I’m talking about are those streets just a touch too far from the nearest tube station. The streets that didn’t make it into the tourist guidebooks and that are mainly frequented by Londoners in the know. These streets all have something unique about them that can’t quite be relayed in words. They all have great places to eat and drink and are worth a trip just to soak up the atmosphere.

Exmouth Market in Clerkenwell has a small lunchtime market on week days serving up pricey, but extremely tempting snacks and dishes with a vast array of restaurants and drinking holes. It’s very much at its best in summer because of the al fresco option. Chairs and tables are set outside the excellent eateries, such as English brasserie The Ambassador. There’s award-winning Moorish food at Moro and the buzzy Cafe Kick bar comes alive during the summer months with people spilling onto the street, sipping on caipirinhas. 

The market is a top brunch spot for a weekend hangover too. Whether you want amazing coffee and eggs benedict to die for at Caravan, or a good old English fry-up at Ayla’s, you can wile away the day feeding your delicate stomach. Other solid options include Medcalf and Santore whose pizzas inspire a loyal following.

Broadway Market in Hackney is brimming with the cool crowd from the East End, and is bustling at the weekend. With stalls of cheeses and gooey chocolate brownies, you could spend all day nibbling and strolling around the market. 

But the pubs are also worth a visit. The Cat and Mutton has a vast open space downstairs and room upstairs for private functions. Food is kept simple with roast pork belly sandwich and a ploughman’s slate making appearances on the menu. 

The Dove is also a good choice, though the staff aren’t always the friendliest. There’s a great selection of hearty food and a fine selection of beers and the place is generally packed full of people, bringing to life this nice old pub.

Shepherd Market in Mayfair is packed full of old English boozers with lashings of history. There’s also a spot of high-level shopping with some interesting jewellers.

On a chilly day you’d hide inside, positioning yourself next to an open fire to keep warm. However, as soon as the sun comes out, revellers who’ve managed to escape their places of work head to these historical cobbled streets for a few drinks before sampling the restaurants. These include the family-run restaurant The Little Square, and Le Boudin Blanc which serves French cuisine. 

Ye Grapes and the Shepherds Tavern are oldies but goodies. These pre-17th century public houses are good for cosy winter indoor drinks and vibrant summer boozing on Shepherd Market itself.

Gloucester Avenue in Primrose Hill is dotted with some fine pubs and restaurants that would suit any palate. The Engineer serves up superior pub grub with a gorgeous garden to enjoy it in, and although the prices are as you would expect for an area like Primrose Hill, the building is lovely, has a thoroughly pleasant bar and there’s a very good chance you’ll bump into one of the many celebs that frequent the area. 

Opposite The Engineer, next to the canal, is a small Sardinian restaurant called Sardo Canale with a beautiful courtyard for al fresco dining and an ancient olive tree situated in the centre of the outside space. Sardo serves up some of the most delicious Mediterranean food in the capital. The Mufflone cheese that comes with the meat and cheese platter is to die for, and their Primi (pasta) and Secondi (meat and fish) courses are made from the freshest of ingredients.

Head a little further down this street and you’ll find the best pizzas on the hill at The Lansdowne served in a lovely, if a little pretentious at times, English pub. Finally, there is a classic place for after-work drinks called The Pembroke Castle with reasonably priced food and booze.

Lancashire Court in Mayfair has a handful of excellent options for eating and drinking. The al fresco option here is also excellent, with the cobbled streets swiftly filling with people looking for sustenance of all sorts come summer time. 

Rocket is a great little Italian place, with pizzas cooked in a traditional oven as well as consistently fresh salads and grills with burly flavours. Or try Hush, which is the perfect place for a ‘relaxing coffee’, and serves attractive brasserie-style food. 

Set within the Hush courtyard you’ll find La Cave, which specialises in rare and fine wines. La Cave is sold as a private room with the capacity to seat 12 people, and with your very own maitre’d and chef it will be quite the memorable experience.

The Ambassador
55 Exmouth Market
EC1R 4QL
Closest Tube – Farringdon

Tel: 020 7837 0009

Moro
34-36 Exmouth Market
EC1R 4QE
Closest Tube – Farringdon

Tel: 020 7833 8336

Cafe Kick
43 Exmouth Market
EC1R 4QL
Closest Tube – Farringdon

Tel: 020 7837 8077

Caravan
11–13 Exmouth Market
EC1R 4QD
Closest Tube – Farringdon

Tel: 020 7833 8115

Medcalf
40 Exmouth Market
EC1R 4QE
Closest Tube – Farringdon

Tel: 020 7833 3533

Santore
59–61 Exmouth Market
EC1R 4QL
Closest Tube – Farringdon

Tel: 020 7812 1488

The Cat and Mutton
76 Broadway Market
E8 4QJ
Closest Tube – Bethnal Green

Tel: 020 7254 5599

The Dove
24–28 Broadway Market
E8 4QJ
Closest Tube – Bethnal Green

Tel: 020 7275 7617

The Little Square
3 Shepherd Market
W1J 7PB
Closest Tube – Green Park

Tel: 020 7355 2101

Le Boudin Blanc
56 Shepherd Market
W1J 7QX
Closest Tube – Green Park

Tel: 020 7499 3292

Ye Grapes
16 Shepherd Market
W1J 7QQ
Closest Tube – Green Park

Tel: 020 7499 1563

Shepherd’s Tavern
50 Hertford Street
W1J 7SS
Closest Tube – Green Park

Tel: 020 7499 3017

The Engineer
65 Gloucester Avenue
NW1 8JH
Closest Tube – Chalk Farm

Tel: 020 7722 0950

Sardo Canale
42 Gloucester Avenue
NW1 8JD
Closest Tube – Chalk Farm

Tel: 020 7722 2800

The Lansdowne
90 Gloucester Avenue
NW1 8HX
Closest Tube – Chalk Farm

Tel: 020 7483 0409

The Pembroke Castle
150 Gloucester Avenue
NW1 8JA
Closest Tube – Chalk Farm

Tel: 020 7483 2927

Rocket
4–6 Lancashire Court
W1S 1EY
Closest Tube – Bond Street

Tel: 020 7629 2889

Hush and La Cave
8 Lancashire Court
W1S 1EY
Closest Tube – Bond Street

Tel: 020 7659 1500 (Hush)
Tel: 020 7659 1515 (La Cave)

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

Secret Foodie Streets

The term “kid in a candy shop” is almost appropriate – except that you don’t have to pay for the goodies, and they are the coolest goodies you’ll ever see in your life.

Cake Britain is, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, the first all-edible art exhibition in the world. Yep, you got that right:  All-edible.  The exhibits are made of cake. And icing. And sugar and spice and all things nice. And furthermore, they are actually there to be eaten by you, the adoring public.

Opening at the Future Gallery tonight and running through until Sunday, Cake Britain is based on Mad Artists Tea Party’s interpretation of the meaning of ‘fair’, with proceeds going to Richard House, We Make Peace and the Fairtrade Foundation. Entry is free in exchange for a fair donation to the charities – and the amazing exhibits and yummy nibbles are more than worth that.

In the interests of allowing everyone time to actually see the exhibits before they can be munched out of existence, there will be strictly no eating the art until the end of the run. In the meantime, lovely ladies in crazy hats will sashay around the room with trays of the most amazing cupcakes in the world, of all flavours, colours and toppings. 

Add to this the bowls of Courvoisier punch served, appropriately, in china teacups, and you will feel absolutely fine about abstaining from taking a bite out of the various curiosities displayed around the room. It has been decreed that the big ‘eat-off’, in which the exhibits themselves will finally be devoured, will be happening on Sunday. I’m not sure how easy it will be to demolish such pieces of beauty, but I bet it will taste amazing.

The only trouble, if you’re thinking of swinging by this immensely cool exhibition for a sugar-rush, is the extreme sweetness. The exhibition is open from 10am until 6pm each day so make sure you’ve timed your visit so that it coincides with dessert. Seriously, eat something normal and savoury beforehand. Those cupcakes might well be the greatest thing on the planet, but mere mortals can surely eat no more than two, three at the very, very most, and after swilling it down with sweet punch, you may find yourself feeling a little on the queasy side. This is an exhibition that practically encourages gluttony – and oh, does it feel good.

All in all, this reminded me a little of a trip to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory when I was young. It was amazing and magical. It was beautiful. They gave us chocolate in the queue, chocolate all the way around the place, and then at the end they took all the odd chocolates and let us stuff our faces. It was the best day ever – and then I couldn’t face another chocolate bar for at least a week. Brilliant.

Cake Britain: 10am-6pm August 27 to 29.

Cost: FREE! (but make a fair donation)

The Future Gallery
5 Great Newport Street
Covent Garden
WC2H 7HY

Tel: 020 3301 4727

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

Edible Art at Cake Britain

Piles of dull steel barriers have sporadically appeared on the pavements of Notting Hill. Houses and shop fronts are being boarded up with thick panels of chipboard. The boards are instantly covered in graffiti and posters advertising DJ sets and foam parties. Locals are battening down the hatches, getting ready to make themselves scarce. This flurry of activity can only mean one thing: Notting Hill carnival is upon us.

As one who has worked in the vicinity for nigh on four years, I know these signs only too well. I also know exactly what to expect on my return to work come next Tuesday. Unlike the technicoloured costumes and the sound of steel drums, it is not going to be pretty.

A general air of hangover fatigue will rest on the neighbourhood. It will be as if an urban street artist has colour washed the pavements and roads in a deep, dark layer of filth. To walk on it will be slippery and sticky in parts. To slip on it and risk skin contact will be a serious health hazard.

Lone, tattered flower garlands will lie abandoned, gummed to Portobello Road. Bright pink feathers will poke expectantly out of large trash piles, and those unfortunate courtyards that didn’t get the chipboard up in time will be transformed into gigantic dustbins. If you’re lucky, the odd carnival reveller will still be staggering the streets, semi-clad in shorts and a ripped shirt. His shoes will be long gone.

The smell will hit around the junction of Notting Hill Gate with Kensington Park Road. A stale mélange of beer, sweat and curried goat. It will find its way around every corner and through the slightest crack in every window. It will linger for several days. So will the trash, the filth, the chipboards and the steel barriers.

That is, until a mammoth amount of precipitation and several branches of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea come and take everything away again. And we can relax again until next year.

If you don’t feel like queuing for hours at Notting Hill Carnival’s crowded pubs and food stalls for rum punch or curried goat, think ahead and prepare a picnic or packed lunch. Notting Hill has some lovely little squares where you can sit and enjoy the sound systems, and Vouchercodes.co.uk has some great deals with Tesco at the moment, so you can enjoy carnival without breaking the bank – or losing your cool!

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Notting Hill Carnival Aftermath