The failure of some bands to make it big is a concern for anyone interested in music, nay for anyone interested in the concept of a fair world.

You make claims to anyone who will listen about the brilliance of an electro-pop three piece, the heartbreaking qualities of a young singer-songwriter or a blue-country combo. You pour your heart out about how great their music is, you staple people to pieces of furniture and force them to listen and all anyone can ever bring themselves to say is: ’sure, they’re all right. But they’re no Fall Out Boy. Now can you please detach me from this table?’

Such overdue recognition is deserved for the Canadian group Hot Hot Heat who recently played the Scala as the final part of their latest European tour. They have been together for over ten years and should have broken through with their rapturous single Bandages. However, it was released at the start of the Iraq war and narrow-minded numpties at the BBC decided it might be considered offensive to have a song that mentioned bandages numerous times. This is the same BBC that gives Chris Moyles air time several hours a day. I’m sure their motives are pure.

But after a brace of critically well-received albums, they are back with a new one which was made in their home town of Victoria. Their performance took in choice cuts from all three albums and was delivered with the panache and intensity that leaves you open-mouthed before pounding walls and screaming, ‘And people haven’t really heard of this band?’

For the uninitiated, Hot Hot Heat have come a long way from their synthpunk beginnings. Their blend of indie music takes in electronica and new wave, resulting in punchy, fierce songs. At their best, on tunes like Get In Or Get Out and Middle of Nowhere, they are frenetic yet coherent, rambling full steam ahead yet with a clear intention of where they are going.

Big-haired singer Steve Bays dominated the stage, ripping the microphone off the stand and pounding across before coming back to add keyboards. The band finished off with Bandages before delivering Give Up and my personal favourite Talk To Me, Dance With Me. As with most bands, they were effusive in their praise for the audience. But coming from Canadians, it’s just that bit more sincere.

Hot Hot Heat played on Thursday 4 March at:

The Scala
275-277 Pentonville Road
King’s Cross
N1 9NL

Tel: 020 7833 2022

Image courtesy of Elliott Cox

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Hot Hot Heat at Scala

Even though Londoners are quite cosmopolitan in terms of what they like to eat when they go out, they are quite conservative in terms of what they’ll make for themselves.

People will happily go out for Thai, Indian, Ethiopian or any other kind of foreign cuisine, but ask your average Londoner to put together a dish from overseas and they’ll probably ask if reheating leftover dhal counts as cooking.

Maybe it’s the pace of urban life that puts so many of us off, but given how simple a lot of foreign food is we should be trying to venture beyond pasta and cheese on toast.

Every year 16 million Britons go to Spain, but of those only three per cent have bothered to replicate the tapas experience at home.

I found out how easy it was, even for a kitchen disaster such as myself, to put together tapas dishes. Then again, I was under the guidance of chef John Benbow who runs the restaurant within a house, Food at 52, in the heart of Clerkenwell. Not only did he provide a step-by-step guide to prepare the tapas but there was also additional Campo Viejo wine to go with each dish as part of their Viva el Vino experience: matching up food with wine rather than the other way round.

Nine of us were separated into two groups and we were all able to contribute to putting the tapas dishes together. We started off with a simple tortilla and although I got off to a ropey start with poorly sliced onions, I finished with a triumphant flipping of the mixture, giving me the confidence I needed to go onto the next couple of dishes.

Soon enough we were making our own mayonnaise, providing an excellent compliment to the lamb chops. The rosé wine with its strawberry and flower flavours complimented the grilled prawns with romesco and by the time it got to stuffing dates with chorizo, I was relishing the chance to do more and more of the preparation. No longer was I hoping to muddle through and let others do the bulk of the work, I wanted to clear the tracks from the prawns and to grind down the chillies, cumin, paprika and vinegar into a paste to produce the patatas bravas.

We finished off preparing the calamari and tuna tartar, and both tasted that bit better for having been produced by my own zealous hands. I am still some way off mastering the art of preparing tapas but the point is that tapas is simple food with little technical difficulty involved. Food at 52’s achievement in their mannered laying out of the process has resulted in a rise in my confidence, which means those cans of soup might be left a little while longer in the cupboard.

Food at 52
52 Great Percy Street
Clerkenwell
WC1X 9QR

Tel: 07814 027 067

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Food at 52’s Spanish Lessons

I don’t know about you, but I am very particular when it comes to women’s underwear. 

On the contrary, my 20-something spinster friend doesn’t care: ‘No one ever sees them so what’s the point in even bothering?’

Err, that’s completely not the point. 

Wearing a good pair of pants is not for the benefit of someone else. I don’t choose my outer clothes in consideration of other people, I choose them because I like them. I have very strict criteria when it comes to underwear: they have to be matching (slightly obsessive I know) and they can’t be too big, too small, too high, too trashy, too boring, too slutty or too frumpy…the list goes on.

Everyone has their body hang-ups, but I think it is safer for everything to be tactfully held in place than droop in all its glory, supported only by a string of dental floss. When you can have you derriere perfectly packaged in pure silk georgette there’s no comparison, and up-and-coming London-based lingerie label Beautiful Bottoms London certainly steps up to the mark.

Taking baby steps in the fashion world are Newcastle University friends Poppy Sexton-Wainwright and Lauren Skerritt. Motivated by their love of silks, their designs are inspired by original European vintage prints of the past two decades.

Poppy and Lauren, both 22 and now based in London, are determined to provide silk lingerie which is both comfortable and sexy. Beautiful Bottoms London embodies femininity, romance and sensuality with their vibrant yet quietly sophisticated collection of intimates. Vibrant prints coupled with light ethereal shapes generate a creative take on the more traditional lingerie essentials, and the collection reflects modern romance with a subtle luxury.

Beautiful Bottoms London is stocked at:

Anthropologie
158 Regent Street
Soho
W1B 5SW

Tel: 020 7529 9800

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Beautiful Bottoms London

Innersound is a Chinese treatment that claims to treat chronic fatigue, low energy, muscular pain, stress and insomnia, all through a little bit of massage.

One recent, rainy London day I headed to the Innersound Clinic, just off Harley Street, for my QI acupressure treatment; which, as expected, started off suitably ‘alternative’. There were people walking around in Chinese silks and slippers, drinking Taiwmanese tea and smiling in a very ‘zen’ way.

I was lead to meet Dr Kim, a small Chinese woman who set up the clinic with her husband. Her associate then translated to me what to expect from the treatment. I was warned that acupressure can feel quite tender as the process works ‘very deep’, and that Dr Kim might burp as she massages my body because she’s literally removing the bad energy from me via her. I was a little sceptical at this point.

Dr Kim shut her eyes, inhaled deeply and held my hand for a whole five minutes (that’s longer than you think it is). When she opened her eyes she told me that I had bad digestion, that she expects my stomach is often bloated and uncomfortable. She also said that I had a constant pain in my neck which travelled down my lower back and leg. She was right on all counts.

She then asked me to lie down on a hard bed at the back of the room, and started the acupressure. It felt much like a rather cursory massage – all done through my clothes – and quite fast; it lasted about 15 minutes. Certain areas she stopped at longer than others – my neck and stomach especially – and there was a fair amount of burping and a few alarming guttural moans.

And then she was done. Convinced nothing had worked, I got off the bed – and noticed immediately that my neck didn’t hurt. I also felt lighter, and I had more energy. In fact my energy levels have remained high since my session a couple of weeks ago. I sleep much better now, falling asleep quickly and waking refreshed. When I picked up a cold last week it took a day to shake it, not the usual ten.

A regular programme of Innersound treatments claims to work through more serious issues such as severe back pain or insomnia. So, why not give the sceptic in you the day off and try it out for yourself?

Innersound
25 Queen Anne Street
Fitzrovia
W1G 9HT

Tel: 020 7462 8811

Treatments start from £40

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Get in Touch With Your Innersound

The last time I was at a press conference with Tim Burton, Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp the mood was jovial. The overzealous trio bounced off each other like rabbits on speed, so eager to flaunt their eccentric on/off screen partnerships. 

It was 2008 and they were in London promoting the ghoulish gothic masterpiece Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the sixth collaboration between the indomitable director (Burton) and his muse (Depp), in a creative partnership that has spanned 20 years.

Needless to say, this time around, at the junket for their 3-D spectacle Alice in Wonderland (based on Lewis Carroll’s written classics Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass), the love remains. There’s a heartfelt homage from Depp, who credits Burton as being ‘one of the only true artists working in cinema’, with a ‘commitment to his vision, impossibility of compromise and doing exactly what he wanted in his own very unique way’.

But the overarching mood at Park Lane’s Dorchester Hotel is just, well, awkward. No less after one journalist makes a sleazy insinuation about (the White Queen) actress Anne Hathaway’s ‘panties’ – or lack thereof.

Burton – dressed head-to-toe in black, bar a salt-and-pepper beard – shuffles about in his seat uncomfortably while the ethereal Bonham Carter gazes into the middle-distance. At one point, when she can’t constitute a response to yet another inane question, she announces: ‘I can’t remember, I really can’t, so I’m now going to make something up.’

The panel look like they’d rather be swallowed up by a gaping great rabbit hole. Thankfully Burton sees the lighter side…

Mr Burton, what is the secret of your love affair with Johnny Depp?

‘Don’t try to make something more out of this. Please!’

You must have some quarrels sometimes?

‘We’re Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling.’

What was your attraction to this project – why did you want to make Alice in Wonderland?

‘I think the thing that really intrigued me was the opportunity to do 3-D and Alice in Wonderland because it seemed like a proper mix of the medium and the material. A few years ago I don’t know if I would have been as intrigued by it, but the trippyness of that world and the tools of 3-D seemed like a good mix, and also just going back and looking at the fact that there were, you know, 20-something versions, and I never really connected to any of them, but yet the characters and the images and the way that they infiltrated culture, they were just so strong it seemed like an interesting challenge.’

The film is so long-awaited, there’s so much speculation and hype – how does that pressure affect you during the process and is there a fear of disappointing anyone because it’s such a well-known story?

‘No for that reason I didn’t feel like there was a definitive version you know…it’s so much a part of culture. Like, for me, I knew the world of Alice not through the books but through music and bands and other artist interpretations, so to me it felt like it was open territory because it is so in our culture. But also thinking about it I didn’t have time. I just finished the movie like, last week, and it got more intense because it’s kind of a backwards process to making this movie so it got completely intense at the end, so you don’t have time to think about those types of things.’

What made you choose Antony House in Cornwall for the filming?

‘It was great. I loved it. I mean we looked at a lot of places but there was a simplicity to it that for me kind of matched – like Alice going into a prison – there was something…it’s a beautiful house but the kind of great, simple, strong kind of structure felt graphic and nice, and it was nice to film…because you know we had to shoot a lot of this in Los Angeles, so it was nice to be in Cornwall. We stayed right on the grounds in the haunted house…I loved it. It kind of kept us going for the rest of the movie.’

Does your dalliance with CGI mean you’re giving up on stop motion [animation], and did you envisage an Alice in stop motion?

‘No. Because we’re using all these different elements, it just made sense to use this technique. I mean stop motion is kind of the only one we didn’t use in this, but I’ve got other stop motion projects, because I do love it, and you try to pick the medium and the material and all of the techniques just made sense to do this way.’

What’s the difference between Wonderland and [Alice’s new world] Underland?

‘Well it’s spelt different. That’s about it! We were not trying to be literal to the story we were trying to be true to what we felt was the spirit of the characters and the spirit of the place, and it’s what Lewis Carroll gave to each and every one of us.’

Alice in Wonderland is in cinemas nationwide.

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Tim Burton in Wonderland

St David’s Day is different from many national days in that there’s no outlandish set of celebrations that are commonly associated with other countries’ festivities.

It isn’t celebrated with the exuberance that comes with St Patrick’s Day or the rugged fierceness seen on Guy Fawkes’ Night and doesn’t cause the outbreak of nationwide indifference that St George’s Day brings every year.

Maybe it’s because Wales is quite a humble nation, determined to do things with a certain pride and with the minimum of fuss, characteristics that were in abundance with those tending the stalls at the Welsh Farmers’ Food Market held in Soho’s Golden Square recently.

The best aspect of farmers’ markets is the stories behind the food and the possibility of finding out and talking directly to the person responsible for the produce. One example was Loraine Makowski-Heaton, who set up Kid Me Not, a company specialising in goats’ milk products. She was inspired by her husband, who suffers from irritable bowel syndrome, and her children who have eczema.

‘Goats milk is a real alternative for people who cannot tolerate cows’ milk,’ said Heaton, ‘and it is nice to give those people a treat once in a while.’

Based in Carmarthenshire, Heaton produces cheeses, chocolate and fudge, all of which benefit from using the goats’ milk, which is creamier and possesses a well-rounded taste.

Having been founded in 2005, Kid Me Not is one of the newer producers present at the market. A little more established are the South Caernafron, who formed a farmers’ co-operative some 72 years ago. The amount of practice they will have had at producing their cheeses has clearly paid off with their spreadable Welsh rarebit coming highly recommended.

Another fascinating story is that which lies behind Patchwork Foods. The company was founded over 25 years ago by a single mother taking £9 out of the housekeeping budget to produce her first paté. The company now produces over 70 different products and has been awarded a large number of awards for its patés, hummus and pies.

My favourite had to be the produce of The Pudding Compartment. As is the case with farmers’ markets, small samples were left out on the top of stalls. Eventually it got to the point that I had taken so many small samples of their Seville orange marmalade and apricot steamed pudding that it was only proper that I actually bought a couple rather than accumulate them through repeated furtive visits. I’m not ashamed to say that the zinger ginger steamed pudding and the sticky toffee pudding did not last the day. And I left the market in the middle of the afternoon.

True Taste Welsh Food Market
Golden Square
Soho
W1

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True Taste Welsh Food Market

Word to the wise: whilst Dettol Mould & Mildew Remover may be spectacularly effective at cleaning both mould and mildew, it’s not so great when it lands in your eye.

This is how I ended up at north Middlesex Accident and Emergency on a Sunday afternoon.

I’ll spare you the gory details of how it happened, and my subsequent reaction, but I will tell you that my housemate said I yelled so loudly, that he thought I was having a baby.

Here’s a little secret. I don’t ever watch television with the exception of Casualty. I’ve even been known to avoid going out on a Saturday night to get that bad boy up on BBC iPlayer with a dirty Dominos pizza and a glass of wine. There’s something perversely pleasant about it.

And yes, I am single, before you ask.

Anyway, I rush to the hospital reception with my eye burning like a mother, waiting for my Holby-esque experience to begin.

Instead of the charismatic desk clerk, I was met with a perspex window and a frumpy old lady.

‘Been here before?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I replied.

‘No?’

‘No’

‘So you haven’t been here before?’

‘No, I haven’t been here before.’

After we had ascertained I had indeed, never been there before, I filled in a form and waited. And waited. And waited.

My surroundings were pretty bleak. Around thirty people in varying states of illness, and the walls, in a very beige state of distress.

After seeing a triage nurse, and showing him the offending chemical, he tapped away at his screen and the words: ‘if product gets into eye, treat as an opthalmic emergency,’ flashed up. Oh God, oh God, oh God I’m going to be blind.

They whisked me through to the nerve centre of A&E. Here’s where I would meet Charlie Fairhead, or my devilishly filthy doctor or hopefully my kinky surgeon who enjoys a bit of how’s-yer-father between brain ops. I met the matron who can only be described as that broom-wielding woman from Tom and Jerry. Shit. My nightmare had only just begun…

Read the second installment of Helen’s two-part blog next week.

Image by acne courtesy of Flickr

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Holby Shitty – Part 1

Modern life presents us with a barrage of information. We get RSS updates about everything from news events to showbiz scandals to someone commenting on a Tweet made about the showbiz scandal that was deemed a news event.

With so much going on, it’s a real effort to try and separate what is important from the fluff.

For instance, was anyone really that inspired about the first of February being World Maths Day? Will anyone be interested about the second week of March being Brain Awareness Week? An event like this exemplifies the maelstrom of information with its inherent irony, a week about awareness that a large proportion of people probably won’t know much about.

But is that why we need to have this day? To make people more aware of the necessity to be aware? It’s enough to make anyone a perpetual motion device powered by befuddlement.

Fortunately, there come along days which draw you in and get you excited about the celebration of something unique. And as a food writer, there are some particular foods that I am pleased to see celebrated. One of these is buffalo mozzarella, a unique product from the Campania region in Italy.

Like Parma ham and Melton Mowbray pork pies, it has been given its own Protected Designation of Origin, which preserves the integrity of the product. As part of its promotion, February 24 was the European day of buffalo mozzarella.

The festivities were held in the grand Italian Cultural Institute and featured a live link-up to 26 different cities across Europe, all of whom were joining in the celebration of this unique product. Various technical hitches meant it was a trying process. The seemingly never-ending tour around the continent’s cities rendered the experience the gustatory equivalent of the Eurovision Song Contest. ‘Hello Budapest, this is London calling. Can you tell us how much you like buffalo mozzarella?’

Fortunately, this didn’t last too long and the assembled guests were then invited to try different kinds of mozzarella along with wines from the region.

Buffalo mozzarella is a versatile cheese. It combines well with prosecco with the fizzing bubbles cutting through the elasticity of the cheese. The smoked variety of buffalo mozzarella is best suited to light-bodied reds such as Beaujolais. The smoked variety is a much more complex cheese, with much more character and nuanced flavours.

The morning was a fascinating event as it featured people passionate about food, keen to maintain the integrity of a local product that is enjoyed throughout the world.

The Italian Cultural Institute
39 Belgrave Square
Knightsbridge
SW1X 8NX

Tel: 020 7235 1461

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European Day of Buffalo Mozzarella

Ladies’ toilets are where unscientific insights can be gathered into what kinds of people attend what kinds of nights.

Not that I was lurking in the loos with a boom mike during The Old Queen’s Head’s fourth birthday party, two Friday’s ago. I needed sanctuary due to being laden with a massive handbag, a trench coat and a laptop ensconced within the Double Whopper of padded cases. Try dancing with that circus on your arm.

Fortunately, the OQH’s toilets are objet d’arts and contain a large  wicker chair, perfect for the girl who just wants some quality hang time. I seized the moment to make some notes (music: right up my funky electro street, bouncer: ANGRY, chandeliers: present – I love those chandeliers) and also watched a girl spending ages trying to paw toilet roll off her heel. She succeeded only for Girl B to tread into the offending scrap moments later.

Then the door came crashing open and there, smilingly with all the charm of a baby playing with a kitten, was a drugged-looking brunette.

‘What are you doing? You look beautiful in that chair.’

I told her then launched a vox pox, just like they do at the BBC: concerned but engaged and with a tilted head.

She confessed to being slightly drunk and said she was having fun and liked the music ‘apart from the slightly cringey songs that make you think you’re in Benidorm.’ We chatted about my career and where it was going (nobody knows) and shortly after another girl came plunging out of an occupied toilet to tell all about her journalistic career. Soon there was a whole committee of us, philosophising, lamenting and borrowing each other’s mascara.

Back in the actual party, Edwin Congreave from math-rock sensation Foals was playing remixes of everything from classics like Daft Punk’s Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger to ‘perfect caressing music’  Empire of the Sun to surely-not-Drumming Song-again.

I loved it and could have stayed all night. But there’s only so much gay abandon you can have with your laptop before you’ve gaily abandoned your laptop and that can never happen. I may not have gone the distance but if my laydeez from the Ladies were anything to go by,  four years down the line, one of Islington’s trendiest boozers is still delivering quality.

The Old Queen’s Head
44 Essex Road
Islington
N1 8LN

Tel: 020 7 354 9993

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Old Queen’s Head Turns Four

London Fashion Week autumn/winter 2010 drew to a close last Tuesday, and as a LFW virgin, I walked into the Somerset House site very excited to be a part of the exclusive world of this important event on the city’s style calendar.

My last season boots embarrassingly followed a pair of buckle clad spats down the cobbles which were immediately snapped by the crouching fashion paparazzi and I soon realised, as a watched others get stopped, that just by being there, you were giving free reign for all to stare, scrutinise, and take your picture without any hint of intrusion.

And some of the stylish someones were lapping it up: indulging the eager photographers with their practised moody-faced poses. However, as I wandered around, I was pleased that my fears for feeling terribly out of place and inadequately styled were very soon dissolved amongst other ordinary faces.

Exploring the exhibition rooms full of dazzling jewellery, amazing millinery and weird and wonderful footwear had me wide eyed and excited like a child with a golden ticket at Willy Wonka’s.

Being in the audience at Amanda Wakeley’s catwalk show, rubbing shoulders with keen fashionistas and Christopher Biggins (yes, he was disappointingly as A-list as my experience got!) and watching the stern-faced waifs swoosh past, draped in sumptuous rouched silk and layers of fine feminine knits, was undeniably wonderful.

But, towards the end of the day, as I took one last turn out of the courtyard, wandered back out onto The Strand and into normal life again, I realised that what I once thought of as this secret world of glitz and glamour, is actually not so farfetched from the everyday streets of London.

I’m actually surrounded by a rich patchwork of ever-changing and always exciting sights. From the gang of mates kicking a can down Mile End Road, to the brave eccentric on the tube in nothing more than a pair of spangly knickers and a hair piece at 10 in the morning, to the model-like couple in effortless vintage plaid buying vegetables at Broadway market.

While I was most honoured to attend, and would recommend anyone who loves fashion to go if they get the chance, I don’t think you have to be at London Fashion Week to see great British design…you just need to get out in London and open your eyes.

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.

London Street Style