London Tag Page

roosters and learning to take pictures

I finished the second of my trio of roosters for the show in March.  At the same time I made two more white bird ornaments and I will do another post and shop update with them soon. Over Thanksgiving I brought my new camera and an owl, a rooster, and the new peacock to New London and my sister-in-law, who is a professional photographer, helped me learn to photograph my birds.  Now I feel so encouraged to play around a bit.  Today I tried to get some depth of field shots. I thought that

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Live from Paris... it's Saturday Night!

This Saturday afternoon (OK so it's not really at night), I will be participating in a VERY fun and totally cool event: the first-ever Katia and Kyliemac Podcast LIVE VIDEOCAST for their  200th show! It's their first show with a live audience, and some of us who have appeared on the podcast (I was their first guest way back in episode 23 & 24!) have been invited to join in the general merriment and shenanigans as we record episode 200 and 201! They'll be broadcasting from the Great Canadia

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December 2008

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY RESURRECTION MEN is currently being featured in Curriculum Connections ("Murder and Mayhem Under Grey Skies" by Joyce Adams Burner), a joint venture publication between School Library Journal and TeachingBooks.net that reaches more than 60,000 educators and librarians around the country every month. Click here to hear me speak about my name through the TeachingBooks.net "Name Pronounciation Guide". Meanwhile, THE UNRESOLVED made Horn Book's list of Recommended American Hist

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Marketing Music Through the Surveillance State.

A UK-based act called The Get Out Clause has taken the "homemade video" concept to a whole new level. The band filmed the promo clip for their tune "Paper" using footage from London CCTV cameras, which they skillfully edited together. The song is meh, but the concept is brilliant: Some YouTube commentors are suggesting the video is at least partially fake — handheld cams cut in with a few CCTV shots. Still, it's great marketing, especially in our era of near-ubiquitous surveillance.

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The financial crisis and migration

With a slowdown in the rich economies (particularly in the housing sector in some countries), might we see large numbers of migrants returning to their home countries? It looks like Poland, at least, is making plans. According to the Polski blog, Poland's government is trying to help: Polish PM Donald Tusk was in London yesterday. He was supposed to try and convince Poles living here to come back to Poland, by asking “Do you have a return PLan?’ (PL stands for Poland, of course). All that be

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LONDON - THE VIVIAN GIRLS AT OLD BLUE LAST

Last night The Vivian Girls played at the Old Blue Last. It was crazy rammed but the band were awesome. On record they have a gazey element which they've eradicated from their live show, turning up the riot. Afterwards Florence Welch said it was like Ghost World The Musical. She had a point. Check out photos from the show here.

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A radical new strategy for fighting HIV-AIDS

Sorry to disappoint you, but we’re doing a deadly serious topic this week. And I mean that literally, as well as figuratively. Over the past three decades, the AIDS pandemic has become one of the biggest health crises in the history of our planet. According to the U.K.-based humanitarian group AVERT, the disease already has killed more than 25 million people, and an estimated 33 million more are infected with HIV, the virus that causes it. Alarmingly, despite international public health ef

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Set The Tone Christmas Party

London's popular ska and reggae club Set The Tone 67 is having a special Christmas party later this month. The 'rogues in brogues' Dean Thatcher and Stephen Saunders step out of The Social for this one-off occasion, and instead invite you to The Walrus in Waterloo on Saturday December 20th for a ticket-only bash. Guest DJs on the night will be the ever reliable duo of French Fred and Kerry Foster. Set The Tone 67 Christmas party Saturday December 20th @ The Walrus, 172 Westminster Bridge

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RESURRECTION MEN

Curriculum Connections, November 2008 "Dissecting corpses for medical study also figures in T. K. Welsh’s Resurrection Men (Dutton, 2007), set in 1830s London. Victor, orphaned at 12, is kidnapped and sold to a pair of grave robbers, “resurrection men” who sell fresh bodies to researchers and run a ring of beggar children on the side. In a gruesomely detailed recounting of Victor’s wildly fluctuating fortunes, Welsh creates a bleak portrait of London street life, darkly Dickensian and thoroughl

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LONDON - R KELLY DOES BEYONCE

According to R Kelly it's hard being a boy. Yes the well oiled croon machine has done a version of Beyonce's 'If I Was A Boy' splicing her vocal with his thunderous baritone. "If you were a boy then you'd understand" he tells B. Like when he wants to chill out with the guys, go to a club and bang one of the pole dancing chicks. What's wrong with that? It's not like he left the freakin toilet seat up again, is it? "Love, respect, trust your man" he trills because he "works and pays the bills".

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RESURRECTION MEN

Curriculum Connections, November 2008 Murder and Mayhem Under Grey Skies " Dissecting corpses for medical study also figures in T. K. Welsh’s  Resurrection Men (Dutton, 2007), set in 1830s London. Victor, orphaned at 12, is kidnapped and sold to a pair of grave robbers, “resurrection men” who sell fresh bodies to researchers and run a ring of beggar children on the side. In a gruesomely detailed recounting of Victor’s wildly fluctuating fortunes, Welsh creates a bleak portrait

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Press Trust India: Walk to school and earn money

Come January one overweight parents in Manchester will be paid to walk their children to school by the city administration. This scheme is part of a 30million drive to improve health condition of the people, including tackling obesity, in Manchester, one of UK's unhealthiest cities. People who attend keep-fit classes, weight-loss clubs or even go for a run in a park would also be eligible for rewards. They will get points on supermarket-style loyalty cards which would be redeemed against hea

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Evening Standard: £4bn London housing benefit bill

MORE than £4billion of taxpayers' money is being spent on housing benefit across London an increase of more than 40 per cent in five years, the Evening Standard can reveal. The new figures will fuel growing concern that private landlords are profiting from a system threatening to spiral out of control. In the 12 months to April this year, £4.15 billion was spent by the Government on housing benefit in London, compared with £2.94 billion in 2003. An Evening Standard investigation shows how ex

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Time Machines and Hip Hop

If you asked me this morning what I had planned today, this is not the answer I would have given you: "Meet the co-founder of "The Billionaire Boys Club" (a joint project with Pharrell Williams) and BAPE (who sell sneakers on sushi-bar-style conveyor belts) at one of London's most respected Savile Row tailors. To say the least, the combination of hip hop street style and traditional English tailoring made for a very incongruous day. In spite of this, I had a lovely time learning about the inn

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Govt delays Heathrow decision

The government's decision on whether London Heathrow Airport will be allowed to expand has been held back until January. In a statement to parliament, Geoff Hoon, the transport secretary, explained that the issue requires further consultation and called on all sides of the political spectrum to help the government come to a conclusion. BAA, the owner of the UK's largest airport, wants the third runway to be completed by 2020 as it could increase the number of flights from 480,000 annually

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URGENT

Canada PM Harper standby team in London; to ask Queen to fire Gov-Gen if no prorogation Jean - Harper meeting ending after almost an hour

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LONDON - THE £25,000 BOOK OF HORSE PORN

I love horses, so naturally I want to spend a quarter of a million on some pictures of them and so do my friends. Don't be bitter. Yeah I see some crying about this 'recession'. Yeah I see some of you bent over in Morrissons looking for your 10p off coupon, eighteen malnourished kids running circles around your ricket-ravished legs. Yeah I see you and your unemployed husbands facing a winter cold and long enough to kill off half of your nasty litter and I spit on you. I spit on you by shoving

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Arab-American Hate Crimes Down After 9/11

Hate crimes against Arab Americans have decreased steadily since the Sept. 11 attacks but are still more common than they were before the hijackings, a civil rights group said on Thursday. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said it received an average of 120 to 130 reports of ethnically motivated attacks or threats each year between 2003 and 2007, a sharp decrease from the 700 violent incidents it documented in the weeks following the 2001 attacks. But that figure is still higher

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Continental to fly between Houston and Frankfurt

Continental Airlines announced this morning it plans to add nonstop service next year between Houston Bush Intercontinental and Frankfurt. The carrier says in a press release that the service will begin Nov. 1, 2009, "subject to government approval." Continental will fly the route with Boeing 767-200 aircraft, seating 25 passengers in BusinessFirst and 149 in coach. Frankfurt will be Continental's fourth European destination from its Houston hub; London, Paris and Amsterdam are the others. Th

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More job cuts: Nomura laying off 1,000 in London; CNBC may fire 80 staffers; Jefferies laying off 300

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Nomura to Lay Off Up to 1,000 London Employees - Wall Street Journal Nomura Holdings Inc. said Thursday it will lay off up to 1,000 of its 4,500 staff members in London, in a bid to cut costs after purchasing Lehman Brothers' equities and investment-banking operations in Europe. A company spokesman said that the job cuts, which will be in both its front and back offices, are partly due to overlap from increased staff members from Lehman. He added that most

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