Real England

real england fair grounds look a lot like real american fair grounds

no doubt. there are probably certain kinds of realness that are transcontinental

digression (because academic study of the real is not itself real. Usually): thinking about realness of minor celebrities in airbrush fairground art led me to the National Fairground Archive, & its articles on the miami, and airbrush art.

and now the works of Paul Wright.

Whilst the 1990s saw marked new genres and practices on the fairground, buttressed by a terrific upsurge in the spectacle and amplification of pop culture on the fairground via the monopolisation of dance music

this is cock on, the experience of fairground rides pre: Happy Hardcore/2-Step/Bassline is v. hard to remember for me

i love fairground airbrush art btw, it is unique and precious

totally - I'd never looked for it on the web before, heartened to see the enthusiasm for the stuff of now rather than just the old-timey tootling wooden horse stuff (which is fine too, but I also want giant airbrush Cheryl Coles).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/noodle_vague/P1000724_zpsd4f07b91.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/noodle_vague/P1000708_zps3c5e0a52.jpg

packed fairground under apocalyptic rainclouds = otm

― HAVE YOU SEEN ME? Please don't hesitate (imago), Wednesday, October 16, 2013 11:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

Did they airbrush over Mel B to make that Keith Prodg picture?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-24574923

Drunk students who brought Newcastle city centre to a standstill while singing and dancing along to a cult football chant have been criticised by Northumbria Police.

Footage of dozens of people joining in a song praising brothers Yaya and Kolo Toure was posted online.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6ta37kgSBo&feature=c4-overview&list=UU902aI-4snZhxFkiWNzISwA

ugh

Do you have an arts secret you would like to share? review@observer.co.uk

Kate Jackson
Singer with the Long Blondes
Go Sheffo fanzine

Go Sheffo is a fanzine about Sheffield and its potential to be the coolest city in the world. Previous editions have included last summer's 'Sheffield Is Beautiful', which featured photographs of Sheffielders enjoying a brief hot spell, while the recent 'Death' issue was about the potential for reusing disused factory works for creative spaces such as band practice rooms and artists' studios. Last year, Go started a competition called 'Cooling the Towers'. It's aim was to save these sleeping beasts from certain demolition by turning them into a symbol of what Sheffield stands for: a proud and fiercely creative city. The famous cooling towers (pictured below right) would become an Angel of the North for the Tinsley Viaduct. One suggestion was that the towers would light up as cars passed on the M1, one a tower of red lights and one a tower of white. Go Sheffo petitioned the city council with these suggested uses but met with mute response. So the secret potential of the towers may tragically never be realised.

sometimes i just remember fragments of guardian articles from 2006 or whatever and have to look them up, it's like a degraded reverse clairvoyance

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-24624639

Hoax bomb threat bridegroom is jailed in Liverpool

A would-be bridegroom who made a hoax bomb threat to a wedding venue after realising he had failed to confirm his booking has been jailed.

I've found the above story oddly haunting for reasons I'm not sure I can quite explain.

i feel like altho he done a bad thing 12 months was a bit of cunt's sentence on the judge's part

Can totally see myself doing something like this in a similar situation, I think that's part of it. The same queasy feeling I get when I watch certain episodes of Peep Show.

have a vague feeling i may be at least distantly related to that scouse dude. my mum is a scouser and has the same last name. it's not a wildly uncommon name though i.. guess.

"You probably done the bomb scare yourself" is a key part of this tale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DartfordPriory4878.JPG

not so much as the picture as the series of decisions that led to that person uploading that photograph to wikipedia and then annotating it on the dartford wikipedia page

Basingstoke is peculiar. you exit the station and, well they've basically taken a load of high street shopping conglomerations (debenhams + sundry satellite stores, next + etc) that previously had formed mini-malls and covered the *all* over, so the second you enter Basingstoke it's totally a huge covered mall that you have to walk through to get to the "Top End of the Town", which is old market-town Basingstoke and more pleasant in some respects but full of shit shops and an excellent looking local museum.

that's barely coherent I recognise. the Mary Poppin, yes, bakers is incredibly expensive bad and slow.

my only experience of Basingstoke has been passing thru on a National Express coach i think. didn't look like i'd want to get off and look around.

those towns where they have typical high street chain shops cafes etc in 18th century buildings with low ceilings are quite real

hi Chester

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T6fEp02s6ac/TjB-BU64lLI/AAAAAAAAFIA/2QXazx8Evzw/s1600/Oxford-Pizza-Express.jpg

Oxford's a city of real/not real contrasts.

i went to sixth form in basingstoke, it's a desperately awful place to be a teenager. nothing at all to do there and unless you're going to that cock-awful shopping center it's totally impossible to get to anywhere else in the town without a car. went back two years ago on a cold and shitty day for my mate's funeral, twelve quid for a taxi to the crematorium and an earful of racist drivel from the cabbie. lots of big shiny new buildings there and still fuck all to do

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Northallerton_Pizza_Express.JPG

has any youth culture oriented media outlet ever done a 'least bad provincial town / suburb to be a teenager in' listicle

Pizza Express seem to specialise in this shit. Leamington Spa is another "tawdry shops in neo-Classical buildings" classic as i remember

i know i'm biased but brighton ftw xp

Oxford's a city of real/not real contrasts.

― he had tons of money in the bank and left the toilet seat up (NotEnough), Thursday, October 24, 2013 8:49 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cambridge has a "reality checkpoint" but it overstates the case imo.

irreal england

http://www.blokesandbirdschicago.com/about/

This place claims to be British, so we'll use a Brit term to describe it: It's a bit shit.

Feels like a rant worthy morning, so lets do that. I feel like the creator of this place was once told about GB, a few words and phrases, and maybe a brief overview of the food, then 10 years later he recounted what he could and tried to base a restaurant upon it. Words and phrases are strewn about the menu with no regard for meaning or context, and it ends up making the customer feel like a jackass when ordering.

Cocktails: Seriously, why do restaurants feel the need to name their cocktails this way? You know what I wanted? Something with bourbon. You know what I had to order of their cocktail menu? "Mind the Bollocks". Now, I realize that this is probably in reference to the Sex Pistols (edgy...), although when it comes to it, drinks are like, one word phrases. So I have to order a "bollocks." Barkeep, please give me a "testicles" on the rock. That being said, it wasn't very good. Too sweet. Their entire cocktail menu appeared uninspired, and named like something from a themed restaurant like a Hard Rock Cafe.

Food: The menu was nice and short, although I might argue TOO short. The curry, albeit tasty (and also stupidly named,) would be unrecognizable as a curry to any Brit. It felt that they had filled out the menu with standard bar food but put "English" or "the Queen's" or something in front of it. Buckingham Baked Mac N' Cheese? Marleybone Mozz & Toms? Posh on Beck? Come off it.

"Amish chicken"
"Fancy curry"
"Queen's Oreo ice cream"
amazing

The thought of an 'English' theme pub serving 'brunch' is enough to make me choke on my bowl of shreddies.

Butcher & Squeeze

artisan cheese, serrano ham, dried & fresh fruit, water crackers & quince's membrillo

http://www.wsc.co.uk/forum-index/27-football/852607-mascots-observing-minutes-silences

Pompey v Norwich Sept 1997 - minute's silence for Lady Di - our mascot = over-sized mobile phone bowing its headset.

not to take the shine off the excellent WSC thread but the practice strikes me as spiritually American

the difference with america is that hieratic kitsch is naturalized, every nfl game has the national anthem and military pageantry alongside the cheerleaders and pyrotechnics, in this country the popular commemorative tendency is more a sort of uneasy solemnity enforced via bashfulness

none more real and England-y than this

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10794642.Katie_Price_refuses_to_come_out_of_back_room_at_Bolton_supermarket_as_perfume_launch_flops/

Fewer than 30 people queued to meet Katie Price at her fragrance signing in Bolton - and she responded by ordering out photographers and refusing to come out of a back room. The short queue gathered at Tesco Extra in Horwich near Bolton yesterday morning, where the Former Patcham High pupil was due to appear at 11am.. The strong-smelling, musky scent comes in a lipstick-red bottle, which the former Page 3 model said she designed to represent her "flirty yet innocent" side.
One punter said it smelled just like Brut.

http://www.real-whitby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Real-whitby-logo.jpg

that site appears to feature a whole section devoted to the annual Goth weekend, which could be none more England

http://www.youtube.com/user/benheels/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=1

realness

yeah, have to cop a late pass cos the tremendous 'mans on road' there is attracting hipster kisses now but really it's all high grade material as they say