Shooting the Winter Olympics

Tonight, or really very very early tomorrow morning the 2010 Winter Olympics will kick off in Vancouver with the Opening Ceremony.  For the next sixteen days the UK and much of the world will become obsessed with sports they haven’t even thought about since the last time this all happened in Italy (me, i’m looking forward to the Ski Cross event). 

But as well as the world class sport on display we’ll also see some fantastic photography, it’ll be everywhere i’m sure.  To get a taster of what you’ll see I would heartily recommend you check out this short video on the New York Times photojournalism blog – Lens.  The video features the photographer Doug Mills who will be at his seventh Winter Olympics as he talks about what its like to work at the games (and it sounds tough!).  Unfortunately I can’t embed the video here (or if you can I can’t work out how!) so head over to the excellent blog here to have a watch.

Billy Bragg at Speakers Corner – the Video

[Vimeo 9306970]

(Video available in HD here)

I mentioned in my last post that while I was listening to Billy Bragg on Sunday in Speakers Corner I shot some video. Well it took over 24 hours to upload and convert on Vimeo, but the video is finally available to watch. I won’t bother trying to explain about the campaign, the video and Bragg himself are much clearer than I probably could be. Anyway enjoy the video and I’d be interested to hear peoples opinions of what’s said.

Billy Bragg at Speakers Corner

Political activist and singer-songwriter Billy Bragg took his campaign against bankers bonuses to Speakers Corner this weekend. To protest the payment of big bonuses by the Royal Bank of Scotland, which was bailed out by the government, Bragg is refusing to pay his taxes.  Speaking at Speakers Corner for the second week in a row Bragg claimed he wouldn’t pay his taxes until the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alastair Darling vetoed the RBS bonuses as he has the power to do.

Using his speech at the Corner (and via his 20,000 strong facebook group) Bragg urged others to join his campaign by writing to the Chancellor and demanding he act against the RBS bankers.  While he’s been in Hyde Park for the last two weeks Bragg has said he plans to take his campaign around the country – starting in Edinburgh outside the RBS headquarters.

I did manage to shoot some video while Billy was speaking but it’s taking its time to upload, so i’ll post that later (probably tomorrow).  But if you want more information you head over to either the facebook group or the special website for the campaign. Both addresses are below -

http://www.nobonus4rbs.co.uk/

No Bonus 4 RBS Facebook Group

Pierre Herme arrives in London

Now this isn’t a food blog but on this one occasion I’m going to make an exception because I have to tell you about Pierre Herme who has just opened in London.  My brother (he-eats.com) has been making Macarons for a year or so now and they’re fantastic.  The recipe he’s been using is from a French patissier called Pierre Herme who is famous the world over for his macarons.

Well until recently Pierre Herme has only had shops in Paris and Tokyo so if you live in London you haven’t been able to try them.  All i’ve ever heard about them is just how fantastic they are, how out of the world they are!  Apparently some people have been known to travel to Paris for the day just for his macarons.

Well fantastic news for macaron lovers everywhere (or in London at least) as of today Pierre Herme has a small boutique selling his macarons in Selfridges on Oxford Street!!  Luckily I had today off work, so this morning I headed to Selfridges to see if they live up to the hype.  And they do!  Without question these are some of the nicest things I have ever eaten.  The flavours are so intense, its so hard to eat just one.

Now, they’re not exactly cheap, but for the quality you get I think they’re well worth it.  They’re priced by weight at around £80 per kilo, and that works out at around £2 per macaron, so they’re standard box of seven comes in at £14.  Might sound like a lot, but once you’ve tried them you realise just how good they are and that they’re worth every penny.

I bought seven different flavours today – Chuao (dark chocolate and blackcurrant), Mogador (passion fruit and milk chocolate), Coing & Rose (quince and rose), Infiniment Vanille (vanilla from Tahiti, Madagascar and Mexico), Infiniment Caramel (salted caramel), the Pistachio and the Chocolate.

If you’re in the UK you might want to check out tomorrow’s Guardian as I think they’re running a piece on Pierre Herme’s London opening tomorrow.  A journalist was interviewing customers (including me!) and said it would probably run tomorrow.

A Neon City

So my neon project is coming on nicely, this weekend I went to a great exhibition put together by one of the UK’s most prominent neon sign makers Chris Bracey in Carnaby Street.  They had some great signs, some of the most creative i’ve seen.  I’ve decided to make this into a long-term project, documenting neon signs from around the city.

So to show off the project i’ve decided to set up a new blog called “A Neon City”.  I’ll show some of the neon stuff here, and will continue to post my other stuff, but if you want to follow the neon stuff head over to aneoncity.tumblr.com where you can see it all