Sunday 25 November 2007

#16 - Get your hands on the latest Apple gadget

Timeout says:
The Apple store is a glass-staired mecca to Mac design. All that shiny chrome and cool white looks so good that after a minute or two your palms will be sweating with the urge to touch but also reach into your pocket and drop a month's salary on the latest bit of Apple wizardry.

Dave did:
Its the end of November and Apple's new iPhone has finally invaded Britain!

Work had just awarded me some gift tokens in recognition for my recent efforts and so I found myself standing around Oxford Circus directing tourists to all sorts of sights and shops. Why you might ask? Well a student friend of mine had refused to take the tube and instead walk from Victoria to the centre of town and so I had to wait from the London-newbie to make his arrival before going off to spend my tokens.

As I looked around aimlessly at how maddeningly and frustratingly busy the streets of London were (why oh why would anyone come to central London to 'relax' via retail I'll never know...its packed and such a waste of time!), I noticed that there was an apple store just down the road on Regents Street. At this moment a very rare lightbulb lit up in my head and with a quick text to my meandering student I was on my way down to the apple store to check out the latest iPhone gadget!

Surprise, surprise the place was packed! But after hanging around for a good 10 minutes I finally got my hands on a demo of the iPhone, albeit with 2 minutes worth of battery life left! A quick fiddle around with the inbuilt camera and I had seen enough. Nice as it is, I doubt I'd ever use many of the functions it provides - give me a GPS system on it and then I might consider buying one....but still as fashion goes you cant go too wrong with the apple!



51 down...949 Things to go!

#794 - Hire your own rickshaw

Timeout Says:
Though certainly an eco-friendly way to see the city, hiring a rickshaw to travel around London isn't cheap, and can also be a little embarrassing (no one delivers withering looks of contempt quite like the native Londoner). Out of the way pedestrians!

Dave did:
Why go to all the effort and expense to ride around London on your own rickshaw when you can hire someone else to do it for you! Re-read Thing #530 and then you'll see that this experience was well and truly felt!

50 down...950 Things to go!

Sunday 11 November 2007

#300 - Bowl

Timeout said:
What did bowling in London used to mean? A retail park in the suburbs, usually. Changes have rolled into town. Perhaps influenced by the stateside successf of 'boutique' bowling alleys - darker, less sticky, with bars, dining areas and no kids - Londoners have been enjoying an alternative to the retail parks in the last 18 months.

Dave did:
Flicking through the 1000 Things book, I came across this entry and realised I had inadvertently ticked this one off at a school friends stag night a couple of months ago. Rather than retro-fit this into the chronology of this blog, I've decided just to add it on here.

I headed down to Bloomsbury Lanes, where the entire place is fitted out like a 50's diner, with about 6 bowling lanes, a dance floor and a bar. Really nice place, although a bit crowded, and it became clear pretty quickly that I still suck at bowling (although I did score a strike once!)




49 down...951 Things to go!

#549 - Appreciate London's 'renegade tiling'




Timeout said:
The trouble with graffiti is its impermanence. No sooner have you heard about Banksy's latest coke-snorting policemen than the man himself has stepped in and had the paint scrubbed away. Step forward 'renegade tiling', a slightly more durable form of street art - and one that chimes happily with the current London vogue for handicrafts.

Dave did:
You already know my thoughts on graffiti as a form of art (synopsis: intriguing). Well I can now categorically state that London's east end is a hot bed of graffiti, and not just the rubbish scrawl-your-gangs-initial-on-a-wall kind, but the cool and witty kind too!



48 down...952 Things to go!

#80 - Chill, big-style

Timeout said:
In late 2005 the Big Chill Bar took a grey steel bunker of a room and turned it into a super-friendly and vibrant DJ bar. It's been busy ever since, whic his no mean feat on the famously competitive East End nightlife scene.

Dave did:
Still out with my friends, and suitable filled up with a cheap Indian from Brick Lane, I went in hunt of a bar I knew existed about a year a go.

Half way down Brick Lane I started losing hope that the bar still existed, but then I found somewhere similar but on the other side of the street...and lo and behold I stumbled over this little find!



47 down...953 Things to go!

#472 - Track down Eine's A to Z (Continued)

Out with friends in the East end of London last night, I managed to guide them foolishly around the Brick Lane area, allowing me to pick up several more letters...







7 down...19 letters to go!


46 down...954 Things to go!

Saturday 10 November 2007

#472 - Track down Eine's A to Z

Timeout said:
Eine is the artist responsible for the colourful giant letters painted on various shop shutters around east London. What started a couple of years ago with the notion that it would be pretty funny to paint two giant Es on Kingsland Road's Herbal club, has grown into a phenomenon, complete with numerous webpages devoted to tracking his whole alphabet down.

Dave did:
I'm a keen artist, or at least I enjoy the concept of art and tried really hard back at school to be good at it!

Unfortunately this passion (however poorly applied to paper) was not supported by my father, who when finding out I intended to take an Scottish 6th Year Study course in art replied "Why do you want an advanced degree in colouring in?"

And so my potential art career fell apart at the seams. Since then however, I have found the wonderful world of photography, and part of this challenge has allowed me to embellish this interest further on a part time basis (I wouldn't take the shots on this blog as being my best however...mainly cause I'm in every single one...but check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidcameron for better proof of my 'unfound talent').

When I read Thing 472 regarding Eine's alphabet, I thought it was a brilliant challenge. To head out to London's east end and track down graffitti (notice that by the end of this post I will have attempted every variation of spelling grafiti...). In some respects I find grafitti one of the most beautiful and intriguing forms of art, much like Escher's work. For a start as far as I can tell, these creations are totally formed from the use of a spray can - and how they get those straight solid lines without a stencil of some sort I'll never know! Secondly, I simply cant fathom how someone can envisage these grafitti images and then bring them to life on canvas...or a brick wall as the case may be.

Unfortunately I don't live around the East of London, and so being in the area when the shops are most likely to be shut is a tad difficult on my part to arrange. As fate would have it however, a works night out with my team saw me around the area and I came across a few of the letters....






I still intend to find the rest, so stay tuned.

46 down...954 Things to go!

#530 - Know What to Avoid: The Rickshaw

Timeout Said:
Things NOT to do in London: The 'Scottish' Steakhouse, The east end of Oxford Street, The cardboard pizza slice, The Trocadero, The caricature, The Rickshaw.

Dave did:
For a book that is meant to tell you 1000 things to do in london, to find one entry telling me NOT to do it...well....it really left in a state of confusion as to what the correct action was!

Looking through the list of things to avoid in London, I was frightened to realise that I had ticked off most of them in my time here so far (perhaps this explains why I find myself 40-odd things into an impossible task!).

I've regularly got off at Tottenham Court Road station, in the heart of the east side of Oxford Street (mainly because that was the first and only Argos store I could find when I moved into my first flat!). I remember waiting over an hour for a started in the 'Scottish' Steakhouse and never wanted to go back again, cardboard pizza? Well any night out in London ends with one of those regardless of how much you try to avoid it!

But the one thing I've never done, and if Timeout is to be believed, the one sadistic thing I've always wanted to try - was getting a ride on a rickshaw!

Now I've tried numerous times to get friends to join me on a rickshaw and its never come to anything. Out with a newly wed couple they refused to pay part of the fare, and being kind hearted people they still refused to get on when I offered to pay for all three of us!

When my parents came to visit, the concern this time was how much space there was in the back seat for all three of us. I was determined to at least give it a go, but again they politely, yet profusely, refused.

But finally, with the almighty powerful reasoning of it being my birthday to back up my request, my dear dear friend Byf accepted my invitation was immediately hopped onto a rickshaw in Covent Garden.

Now we had just been to a comedy club around the same area with a group of my old uni friends to celebrate my 24th birthday, and we were all making tracks back to my flat to polish off a 3 litre bottle of Moet I drunkly purchased a week before (don't ask...very long story...but for your reference, here's what it looks like - I'm a very proud father):




Anyway, I digress...we had just been kicked out of the comedy club (no misdemeanor, just closing time!), and I spotted a rickshaw waiting outside the pub.

"Byf!"
"Yes DC?"
"It's a Rickshaw!"
"Right..."
"I've got to ride one of those...its in my 1000 Things"
"Cool, but what about everyone else?"
"Ah sod 'em they know where they're going, we'll meet them at the station"
"Jump in then!"

And thus began a fun-filled 5 minute, £14 trip around the tiny streets of Covent Garden ending outside Holburn tube station.

Besides Byf yelling at the top of his lungs every few minutes to disinterested passerby's that "YES, we are NOT gay, NOT GAY people!", one other story worth noting was our drag race with a BMW convertable.

Waiting patiently at a set of traffic lights, this Beemer drove up alongside us. Byf immediately spotted this, leaned out of the rickshaw, held out his arm and imitated the gunning of a motorbikes engine - with mandatory engine revving sound effects. Driver of said beemer gave a wry smile, relaxed his shoulders and gunned his engine in response.

Red
Amber
Green

The rickshaw (peddlar knowing full well what we were asking of him) took off and with his tight turning circle managed to beat the Beemer around the corner and we cut him off.....Fast and Furious eat your heart out!


Anyway, long story short - I betrayed my Timeout bible and fell in love with the Rickshaw.




45 down...955 Things to go!