Every year the guys behind  World Duty Free hold a Whisky Fest in association with their specialist store, World of Whiskies. This year’s event is running between 18th April – 22nd May 2012.

Whisky Fest ’12 is an event aimed at introducing you to the world’s most exciting releases, from fine single malts, single grains and bourbons to great blended whiskies. Experienced staff are regularly involved in tasting and training sessions to ensure you get expert advice. With anything up to 100 whiskies open at any one time during the event, it provides an excellent opportunity to explore a wide range of different characters, styles, flavours and finishes.

If you find a whisky that you love, then you can take advantage that every bottle is priced at least 20% less than the average UK high street price* and many bottles are up to 35% off during Whisky Fest.

You can find out more about the event by going to World Duty Free where you’ll find all you need to know about the exciting whiskies on offer in-store and enjoy our brochure packed full of advice, tips and articles written by our Whisky Expert Charles MacLean.

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Going travelling? Like whisky? You’ll love Whisky Fest ’12!

Want to go out?

Er, no not really.

Come on, it’s Saturday night. We’re young, we’re hip, we’ve got to find a way of escaping the drudgery of the 9 to 5.

I’ll be all right. I’m real close to finishing this jigsaw puzzle. It’s the second in the series of ‘Captains of Industry’. I’ve already done James Dyson and now I’m part way through Bill Gates.

Puzzles? Captains of industry? What are you on about? We should be out, having fun in a nightclub.

OK, can I be honest with you? I hate nightclubs. I hate that you’ve got to wait in a line for three hours. I hate paying eight quid for a beer. I hate the music and I especially hate having to share space with a bunch of pre-loaded idiots who seem to spend less time dancing and more time posing for photos that they put on Facebook, all in a misguided attempt to show off the massively entertaining life that they lead compared to everyone else.

So it’s a Bill Gates jigsaw puzzle hey?

Sure, we can do it together.

Does this speak to you? Is this your life? Have you reached a point where you hate having to be young because it’s just so knackering? But you can’t admit. You can’t say to people that you are just too tired to go out, David Guetta makes the same song over again and let’s face it, the music in clubs is too loud.

Fortunately there’s an antidote. A place where the emphasis is on having fun rather than posing, and it’s closer than you think. It’s the brainchild of BBC London DJ Sean Rowley who transformed a once a week slot on his radio show to a club night in Camden’s KOKO. Imagine all the cheesy pop in the world and the chance to bop away in a way that is more fitting with a school disco but without all the pubertal anxiety and the chance of getting wedgied by the first XV.

The entertainment includes dancers roller-skating across the stage, all of which contributes to an atmosphere of energetic yet frivolous fun. The night takes place at the end of each month and has a different theme each time. This time it’ll be one big beach party. Even if it’s completely incongruous to the Camden nightlife outside, the atmosphere inside aims to make you forget every semblance of attempting cool.

The next Guilty Pleasures will take place on 26 May at:

KOKO
1a Camden High Street
Camden
NW1 7JE

Tel: 0870 432 5527

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Guilty Pleasures Night at KOKO

Marius Kwint is curator of the Wellcome Collection’s new show Brains, an exhibition oozing grey matter. He talks to The London Word about its cerebral theme; why Google isn’t making us stupid and the reasons London is an unbeatable destination for visual culture.

Tell us about the Wellcome Collection’s new Brains exhibition…

‘The thinking behind the exhibition’s tagline, “Ask not what the brain does for us but what we do to brains” is to show the brain as a cultural object, and how we deal with things and therefore each other. It’s an attempt to look at social and cultural actions and what we make the brain into in the way we represent it, cut it up, turn it into images, preserve and collect it. All these things are important parts of what you might call our material culture – which have values and stories at their heart.’

In what way does the show critique our historical approach to understanding the brain?

‘If you look at the history of science and technology you have to encounter this idea of the Enlightenment which is stereotyped as a belief in progress and reason.

‘The show looks at the way humans value the brain by comparing them to find our material essence, and the way that process was flawed because it ended up reducing people to their material core, without having a full understanding of the way the brain interacts with the environment or the way people interact with each other.’

Do you believe that the internet is somehow rewiring our brains, as some studies have suggested?

‘To an extent everything you do rewires the brain all the time, each thought and emotion you have. But the idea of wiring is possibly a dubious metaphor, which we tend to use because we think in terms of electronic connections. Actually the neurobiology of the brain is much more complex. It’s partly about connectivity but it’s also about the chemical mix and myriad flow patterns. So, the idea that the brain is physically being re-wired in some way by technology: while it may have some importance at a developmental stage, you can’t really say how much that is happening. Having said that, adaptability of neural connections is a hallmark of mammals.’

How would you rate London as a destination for visual culture?

‘The fact we have free access to world class visual imagery makes it hard to beat as a city. I’ve certainly never been anywhere else in the world where you don’t have to part with $20 or 20 euros every time you go into a museum. So I think it’s extraordinarily rich and a lot of that is to do with those Victorian institutions set up with the principal of free access.

‘As a city it does have a particularly vibrant visual culture and that’s because of all sorts of things as well – it’s a world city with a strong ethnic mix, and there is a thriving, slightly rebellious artistic culture still and I think all those things are important.’

Marius Kwint is senior lecturer in Visual Arts at Portsmouth University. He’ll be discussing the themes of the show at the screening of the DocHouse documentary Surviving Progress on Thursday 17 May, the Tricycle Theatre, 269 Kilburn High Road.

The Brains exhibition runs until June 17 at:

The Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Road
Euston
NW1 2BE

Tel: 020 7611 2222

Photo courtesy of Nathanael Corre, Wellcome Images

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.

Museum Curator Marius Kwint

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that ethical fashion, in all its avatars, will become more and more important around the world in coming years, as we come to terms with the consequences of our choices. When it was just sweatshops that were the problem, a lot of us could turn a blind eye. If it doesn’t happen here or to you, but in a land far, far away, it’s easier to ignore. If a tree falls in a forest, and there’s no one there to see it, etc… But we are now facing recession (a second recession, though I can’t remember when the first one finished. Maybe I was too busy trying to balance my cheque book). We are also looking at catastrophic climate change. And if none of this seems like an immediate problem, heck, fashion prices should be enough to make us hyperventilate.

I’ll confess. I like clothes. Kooky colours, prints put together in some odd couplings, the sheen of silk, a riot of flowers – it’s all intoxicating. But the stories behind the clothes – the below-minimum wage paid to workers, the children that have no choice but to sweat away at the loom, the hundreds of thousands of pounds that celebrities pay for a diamond-studded sandal to walk the red carpet, the awful working conditions of labourers that will never in a million years be able to afford the button-holes they are tacking on – it’s depressing. As Marx said, capitalism is a vampire, and can only survive by sucking on living labour.

So, when I hear about anything to do with ethical fashion, I feel just a little bit better about my love for fashion. Whether it’s Edun – the collaboration between Ali Hewson and Bono that promotes fair trade partnerships with Kenya and Uganda, or a pairing of M&S with Oxfam to encourage people to recycle clothes, or a commitment to local production and sustainable practices by indie brands like Beyond Skin shoes – it’s all good, and I’m hoping, it is more than just a celebrity fad.

And now here’s another way to show a commitment to charitable causes. Fashion Targets Breast Cancer is an endeavour set up by Ralph Lauren in 1994 after he lost a close friend to the horrible c-word. Since then, celebs including Elle Macpherson, Twiggy, Naomi Campbell and Kylie Minogue have given their faces and their time to the campaign. Brands such as M&S, River Island, Topshop, Warehouse, Coast, My Wardrobe, Laura Ashley, Debenhams and others sell bespoke pieces for the project every year, with at least 30% of the proceeds going to Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

‘Buy it, Fight it,’ say posters of Georgia May Jagger (pictured) and Pixie Geldof, who are fronting the campaign this year. Look out for these denim-clad ladies in their street-chic during your early morning commute. This year’s FTBC offerings include jazzy festival wear – think woven bracelets and imprinted T-shirts, and one-shoulder dresses, fascinators and teapots for a royal theme. All very apropos for the Diamond Jubilee summer season.

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.

Fashion Targets Breast Cancer

Heather Shannon is a piano and keyboard player for four piece Australian group The Jezabels. Here she bigs up London’s Broadway Market, Bookmarks and Busaba Eatthai…

‘I am currently in a hotel room in New York trying to deal with a hangover from last night. We had a show last night at the Bowery Ball Room. It was sold out!

I miss scotch eggs, ale, the Thames, markets, Boris bikes, greasy English breakfasts, Indian food.

It’s strange that when you travel a lot, most international cities are surprisingly similar on first impression. Although when you spend more time in a place, you come to realise how different the people are, and then you start to see reflections of the people in the way the city is set up. Just details I guess.

I have discovered some pretty awesome restaurants [in London]. One called Tayyabs in East Aldgate, and another called Busaba Eatthai on Old Street. I think I would say it is the best Thai food I have ever eaten and I come from Sydney where Thai food is extremely good. I also like the Broadway Market on Saturdays, and the Pub on the Park in London Fields.

The first time I went to London I visited the Tate Modern. It was the best gallery experience I have ever had. I love the building and the way they have organised the exhibitions. It’s so clear and straightforward. Usually you see some kind of pretentiousness in art galleries, but I did not see it here. It is really for the people and is very open. It has a great bookshop too.

My perfect London day would involve sunshine, a bicycle ride, markets, a couple of beers, friends, a cupcake from Happy Kitchen. Maybe hanging at a bar or pub somewhere on Broadway Market, getting a few drinks and some dinner. Walking or riding along the water at night is really beautiful.

We have a rehearsal space in Hackney called the Premises. That is where all the creative stuff happens. We set up there for a few days and play music. There are other bands that rehearse there too, so it is a very creative atmosphere.

I still haven’t been to the Globe yet. I think that is something that everyone needs to experience when in London. It seems like there are a lot of little hidden places around the city in alleyways. I have come across some really great bookshops. One called Bookmarks. It’s a socialist bookshop.

Elgar’s Enigma Variations definitely captures the countryside for me. It is a very English piece of music. I’m not quite sure what makes it that way though. It somehow conjures up images of England. Maybe it’s the nostalgic feeling in the music, mixed with excerpts or hints of folk themes.

Sometimes I feel a bit claustrophobic in the City of London, because you can only really see as far as the building in front of you. It isn’t as bad though when it is sunny.

Here are two pieces of advice that go hand in hand in the creative industries; say yes to every opportunity that comes your way, then, you will get to a point where you have to learn to say no.’

The Jezabels play London’s Electric Brixton on Thursday 17 May at:

Electric Brixton
Town Hall Parade
Brixton
SW2 1RJ

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.

My London: The Jezabels

Imagine a place where there is no traffic, no stress, and no one has ever heard of Boris Johnson. The San Blas Islands in the Kuna Yala region of Panama are quite possibly the most beautiful gems in the Caribbean. Island life is simple but happy and relaxed, with indigenous communities dotted across the 378 islands that make up the archipelago.

The Kuna Indians escaped Spanish invasion thanks to lots of coral reefs and sharp rocks. Even today, shipwrecks poke out from the crystal blue waters as a reminder of the dangers. This place is remote, but it’s easy to fly or take a cruise from Panama City. Or you can sail from Cartagena in Colombia for a few days with organised boat cruises. Budget travellers enquire in boat yards to offer a helping hand during cruises.

Once there, you can swim from island to island, snorkel through reefs or take some time on a completely deserted white beach before paddling back to your boat on a canoe. On some islands there are only starfish, hermit crabs and birds for company, so it really is a world away from London.

Only 49 islands are inhabited and some are more developed than others. Avoid the backpacker islands and head out to explore friendly communities living as they have done for hundreds of years. Elderly ladies with bright red headscarves thrash coconuts with machetes and giggling kids skip through town on their way to school.

These communities haven’t seen the negative side of tourism as much, so visitors are often greeted with handshakes and children scramble to get their picture taken. The sea is beautifully clear and the white sands and palm trees are everything you would expect from a tropical paradise.

Fishermen, craftswomen and fruit pickers are keen to sell their wares on water, so a fish supper is never far away. Eating freshly cooked lobster onboard a sailing boat while watching the sunset ends a perfectly relaxing day. It’s washed down with rum and coke, and as the boat gently rocks its inhabitants to sleep, it lifts all their stresses and strains away.

Fly to Panama City from £693 with budgetair.co.uk.

San Blas is 20 minutes from Panama City with Air Panama. Fly from Panama City to the island of El Porvenir from £23.

Start looking for boats from Panama City or Cartagena here.

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.

Tropical Islands: Olympic Escape Idea #2

Peter Joucla’s stage adaption of The Great Gatsby finds its perfect setting in the stunningly atmospheric Wilton’s Music Hall, transporting audiences back to the Roaring Twenties with genuine conviction. Immersive theatre is a term bandied around a lot nowadays, utilized to cure theatre-goers fatigue with wooden and remote productions, to varying degrees of success.

Gatsby’s ill founded, romantic assertion ‘Can’t repeat the past?… Why of course you can!’ underscoring the novel‘s tragic ending, takes on renewed life the minute you step through Wilton’s charmingly dilapidated peeling wooden door.

The very walls of the building seem to exude their historical lineage, the hum of animated conversation mingling with distinctive Charleston music, audience members who had gone all out in full flapper attire and well placed mobster characters causing mischief within the crowd, all culminated in a palpable sense of excitement as people amassed in the bar and foyer.

The ever so visually appealing era truly seemed to have come alive and taken root comfortably in this enclave from the humdrum of contemporary life. Free Hendrick’s G&T’s and Charleston dancers in the interval added to this heady evocation and by the end of the night audience members were grooving to the sounds of the London Dixieland Jazz Band as though 2012 were a distant memory.

The Great Gatsby sits happily amid ‘Top Book’ lists for a reason, and I for one was dubious about its transition to the stage. My fears were compounded when the play opened with a chorus of a cappella scatting jazz singers and dancers – were we about to sit through a musical bastardised, cheesed-up version of a well loved classic?

Fortunately the chorus were used proficiently to carry the interim between scenes further conjuring the Jazz Age, and improving the flow and seamlessness of the production, and my cynical preconceptions were washed away. Hats off to choreographer Connor Bryne who powered the chorus vocally and excelled in his cameo as Wolfsheim, a sinister character in the book, who Bryne imbued with comic depths as a Chicago gangster rivalling Brando’s Godfather.

Joucla’s adapted script and the actors’ great aptitude for comic timing, had the auditorium roaring with laughter throughout the play; this injection of humour was unexpected and added another level to Fitzgerald’s timeless tale of moral corruption in a time of economic excess. The touch of light heartedness, often propelled by a buoyant Vicki Campbell as Jordan, continued to serve Fitzgerald’s purpose of social satire as we sniggered at the shortcomings between what character’s say and what they represent.

The Great Gatsby starts slow and this production worked the novel’s pace to its advantage so that when the second half sets in, successive party scenes and intimate conversations have you unconsciously utterly embroiled in the action onstage. The script omitted Nick Carraway’s guiding and morally objective narrative voice yet Nick Chambers who played this role, employed a series of quizzical expressions and aghast stances, so that by the time his cataclysmic ‘They’re a rotten crowd… you’re worth the whole goddamn bunch of them’ is belted out, we see him as the omnipresent moral yardstick and take his word for gospel.

As tensions rise exponentially to breakneck intensity in the second half critical scenes, such as the hot and claustrophobic hotel room where Gatsby declares his love, contain real bite and pertinence.

The performance should be merited for maintaining its jocosity and yet upping the game when the script called for it. The evening as a whole was thrillingly diverting and thoroughly entertaining.

The Great Gatsby is running until 19 May at:

Wilton’s Music Hall
Graces Alley
Hackney
E1 8JB

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 Great Gatsby at Wilton’s Music Hall

Rooftops are all the rage in London nowadays, and it’s not hard to guess why. The open air breeze, the feeling of being a pseudo VIP, the often stunning views; rooftop bars have a lot going for them.

However, they aren’t always that easy to find. Such is the case for the Trafalgar Hotel’s Vista rooftop bar, hidden away within the tourist soup that is Trafalgar Square. With dark wood, floral touches, heaters and lamps placed throughout, the whole place is stylish and spacious, while maintaining an air of cosiness.

If that’s not enough to entice you to the top, they have now launched a new ‘Graze at Vista’ menu, filled with Mediterranean and North African-influenced food and drink to catapult your taste buds into the summer months. The food follows a create-your-own style, with salads leaves, toppings, dressings and breads, as well as meat, fish or vegetables that are marinated in-house and fired in Vista’s clay oven.

Larger menu items include grilled Cajun and barbeque beef rib eye steak (£22), lemon monkfish (£22) and grilled Halloumi cheese with piquillo peppers (£10). Smaller plates are also available, including olives, Moroccan seed mini bites, dips and crisps (around £5). If you’re feeling particularly flush, you can also opt for the caviar blinis (£48), ladened with 10 grams of Beluga caviar, and joined by crème fraîche, shallot, egg and salad accoutrements. I only had the chance to try a few mini-plates, but everything was tasty, remaining summery even despite the awful weather we had on the day.

For dessert, try the Purbeck ice cream pots (125ml, £5), which feature the usual suspects of Belgian chocolate, vanilla etc, as well as the more dangerously – and remarkably mooreish – chilli flavour.

Cocktails are also very much a theme, with yummy staffers that include the Hot Chilli Woman (Black Moth’s truffle flavoured vodka, elderflower, lemon and vanilla) and Connoisseur (cognac, white grapes and basil).

Also worth a try are the stranger semi-edible cocktail flavours of the Leila Lavender Martini (gin, olives, thyme, rosemary, basil and lavender) and the Mojiterraneo – a twist on a classic Mojito – packed with basil, orange and… erm… cherry tomatoes. Trust me, it works.

One negative is that the cocktails don’t come cheap, being priced from £14 and upwards, and although the place is apparently renowned for attracting celebrities (Linda Barker was there when I went, but you can decide how you feel about that), I still feel that they are a little overpriced.

Another gripe is the view. Even with my 6’2 frame, I struggled to see over the barriers surrounding a large portion of the rooftop. This was not apparent on photos I looked at prior to venturing there. While there is still plenty of beauty to be seen – including the London Eye and of course some portions of Trafalgar Square – you have to pick your spot early, as other areas feature nothing but a bleak grey canvass.

But I can trust you to do that, so it is still well worth a visit, particularly for a special occasion, or to show off to non-Londoners. Pop some snazzy clothes on, pick a day with nice weather, and try some of the excellent cocktails and snacks. Just let someone else pick up the tab if you can.

Graze at Vista
2 Spring Gardens
Trafalgar Square
SW1A 2TS

Tel:  020 7870 2900

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.

Rooftop Fare in Trafalgar Square

It began with a blasé comment from my flatmate. Until then I’d happily pick up my Metro every morning without a thought – pleased with my freebie which doubled up as both a tool for distraction and an occasional weapon.

‘You know it’s part of the Daily Mail.’

‘What?’ I scoffed, sceptically.

‘No, seriously – look at this.’ And via the power of Google there he stood brandishing the proof. Smug bastard!

I gulped. ‘You mean I’ve effectively been a… [wretch] a… [wretch]… a Daily Mail reader for the past five years?’

I shuddered with the realisation. I had to question a lot about myself that week…

I hadn’t given it much thought again until last week, when I spotted an advert from TFL’s latest campaign, professing: ‘The newspaper you’re reading is rubbish’ – you’ve got to love that double entendre!

I looked into it a little further, in case TFL shared my thoughts on the Daily Mail – unfortunately they don’t appear to, but it did highlight this: how many times have you, like me, preparing a swift exit off the Tube, squashed your paper between the seats or rolled it up and plonked it behind you in anticipation of the next passenger – without a thought of where all those neatly stacked morning Metros end up? According to TFL, last year there were 327 litter-related incidents such as delays, signal failures and suspensions caused simply from newspapers and litter making their way onto tracks, jamming doors and signalling equipment.

And it’s not just trains and Tube trains – hop on a bus after a hurricane of school kids and you’ll understand why penny-counting pensioners are no longer the bus drivers’ number one nemesis: newspapers scattered everywhere like large deposits of confetti – bulky, ill-coloured confetti, with no sense of occasion at that. It’s not a pleasant sight. It seems unfitting that as a generation of recyclers we are all guilty of abandoning papers, wiping our hands of them and passing the responsibility onto someone else.

Although I can empathise with those who may want to toss the paper into the lap of the nearest passenger when you realise its in league with the Daily Hate, your paper could be one of those which cause those f-word delays.

So next time you reach for a freebie, take your paper to work with you, pop it under your arm in a quintessentially gentlemanly manner or look out for a recycling bin – because the paper you’re reading may very well be rubbish.

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.

‘Your Newspaper Is Rubbish’

With all the rain we’ve been having in London recently, you could easily be forgiven for expressing surprise that the summer music festival season has only just got started! In fact, during my time at The Camden Crawl, it barely rained at all. Luckily, it’s a little cracker of a weekend, and there was plenty to make up for the ominous lack of a drenching.

Taking place across a load of bars, gig venues and a few other choice locations around Camden, The Crawl is an annual institution of booze, music, some more booze and a little bit of comedy. The atmosphere in the area is incredible. Many of the bands are small, and many of the big venues don’t open till evening so during the daytime the crowd tends to spread out across all the venues in search of music.

The daytime highlights this year included The Camden Gardens, an outdoor stage nestled underneath a railway bridge, with sets from bands such as Corby rockers Acoda, and the deliciously funky BIGkids. For those more inclined to avoid the non-existent rain, there was plenty of live music indoors during the day too. I opted for a quick stop at ‘The Flowerpot Collective’ at the Wheelbarrow, to catch Loverproof, a soulful three-piece band led by a Winehouse inspired singer who provided a great soundtrack for the early bird crowd.

Most of the comedy on Saturday was limited to the daytime, including ‘Crack Comedy’ at The Camden Rock. I caught a few acts here, including Jigsaw, a sketch show of amusing awkwardness. The highlight though, was Steve N Allen, who performed with what he claimed was the hangover to stop anyone from drinking again (an optimistic mission statement at The Camden Crawl). Despite the physical impediment, he had the room falling apart with filthy ponderings from his mind and entertained throughout.

After an afternoon of manic dashing about, the Roundhouse Terrace & Bar was the perfect place to relax ahead of the night’s music. A quick succession of lovely folky sets played out during my attendance. Sam Lee played to a sat-down-knees-crossed audience in the bar, before Melodica, Melody & Me, and finally We Were Evergreen performed outdoors to an enthusiastic crowd in the sun (that’s right – it still wasn’t raining).

After a slow set from Keep Shelly in Athens at the Barfly, it was time to ramp things up for the evening. The Cuban, located in the middle of Camden market, had an incredible vibe, with the crowd going ballistic for The Milk, a slick rock band focused solely on getting everyone dancing. In fact, the atmosphere in The Cuban was so addictive it almost derailed my plans to move on. Luckily (for me) the power to the stage was suddenly cut, and I quickly jumped on this opportunity to move on, knowing full well the party wouldn’t stop just because of a few technical difficulties.

The remainder of the day was centered in the biggest venue on The Crawl – Koko. The Big Pink played an epic set before the headliners of the day took to the stage. The Futureheads made an incredibly brave decision to stick to their acoustic/a cappella touring set-up in front of what must be the drunkest crowd they’ll perform to this year. Featuring harmonic melodies, a cello and what they described as ‘Sunderland Bluegrass’, the set was light on familiar tunes, but heavy on innovation. Always at their best when taking a risk, the set was ultimately a success, and provided a fitting end to a day best summed up as one of surprises. Not least of which was the lack of rain.

The Camden Crawl took place on May 4 to 6 at various venues throughout Camden.

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 Camden Crawl