greasing up the pig and arming the bridesmaids with cleavers to catch and kill it is an ideal reception icebreaker

noted   

thanks for the tips all, appreciated.  had forgotten about lamb, which is silly because i much prefer it anyway.  Will investigate!

thanks - yeah that's my worry!  i'm sure I've had a couple of really good ones in the past, not in bristol though....

I want to book a local(ish) hog roast for my wedding - has anyone had a really good one lately?  Anyone you'd recommend?

avoid Red driving school - they use instructors that only have provisional licenses.  I got one of these deals on groupon last year - 2 lessons for 20 quid or whatever - but the guy was a crap instructor, then failed his test and i had to find a new teacher.

otherwise, no major reasons not to look for the cheapest.  f'rinstance BSM charge their instructors 250 quid a week (!) to use the BSM name and whatnot.  So they can't afford to be too cheap, whereas some independent guy can be more flexible...

15 quid for a mixdown??!??

- £40 is far too expensive.
- Not having the option of day tickets. Can't remember if they had em when it was still in town.
- The no-drinks on site rule. This is probably the biggest turn off.

those are perhaps the biggies for me.  a ticket, a few pints and a burger brings it to nearly 70 squid, even if you only want to go for one day.  That's gonna put off a lot of the casuals/undecideds/poors

But do you recon they're trying to fleece people? Given what I know of the people involved (and admittedly it's not a lot) I doubt huge profits are being made on the fest. Thus assuming large amounts of the money made off tickets / booze go into the festival then what's the option? Book cheaper acts? Yet people complained the lineup wasn't particularly good. Not do it at Ashton Court? The setting is fantastic and accommodates a large number of people than (I'm guessing) Castle Park and similar. Doesn't seem like a whole lot of areas you can cut costs.

No I don't think they're trying to fleece anyone.  They're in a difficult position.  I was just outlining the main reasons I didn't buy a ticket, and I suspect there were others who felt priced out of it too.

By and large I agree with Snoo - I think smaller and more accessible is the way to go, with no big names.  But then I don't know the financial/legal details behind the scenes, so it's easy for me to say....

- £40 is far too expensive.
- Not having the option of day tickets. Can't remember if they had em when it was still in town.
- The no-drinks on site rule. This is probably the biggest turn off.

those are perhaps the biggies for me.  a ticket, a few pints and a burger brings it to nearly 70 squid, even if you only want to go for one day.  That's gonna put off a lot of the casuals/undecideds/poors

....you know, the one opposite the junction with Ashley Road.

It would seem Paul is no longer the tenant there.  Not entirely sure how it's going to pan out.  If you're an artist and he has any of your stuff - and you want it back - it might be prudent to start thinking about it.  


EDIT

that probably looks wilfully cryptic.  It's not meant to be, I just don't know Paul very well and don't want to be chatting shit about people online.  But I've just had an interesting afternoon trying to recover some prints and, without wanting to make things harder for Paul, would suggest that other artists do likewise for the time being.  PM me if you need more info innit.

i'm in.  raving local is the future   

drove manchester-budapest once - with two overnight stops (lots of boozing each time) it was really good craic and a decent excuse to check out the pubs in some random european towns.

my mate who lived out there eventually settled on a bit of a compromise - e.g. get a longish ferry to the continent, get 6ish hours kip on that, then smash through the remaining thousand-odd miles in one stint.  you wouldn't want to do that on the way home from a festie though.  i take it ferries to bilbao/santander are out of the question?

if you don't have a particular present in mind, have a look at www.folksy.com - it's like etsy but british - shipping might be a bit quicker.  mm, birds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHmLljk2t8M

I voted bob dobbs for my 2nd choice, I like his pipe

oh yeh 

did exactly this upgrade last week. worked really well tbh - i backed up first but the only data i lost was my desktop background and some drivers from an old soundcard.  otherwise, everything worked fine...

@Steve - depends where you go.  if you're in the big boozy stag-party bars, or the touristy gaffs near the old town square (or the increasingly common high-society gaffs for posh russian kids) then expect to pay UK prices.  if you're in a bar where actual Czechs drink (there are plenty of these in the city centre, usually only a 5 or 10 minute walk away from the main tourist drags) then a pint is about £1.20. 

Likewise for food - a decent czech meal will set you back 6 - 8 quid in your average pork and dumpling place, or you can spend a shitload in a flashier restaurant.  Keep an eye out for Potrefena Husa places - http://www.staropramen.cz/husa/ - they're a chain run by Staropramen and they're a reliable option for good food, beer and reasonable prices.  They also sell tatarak (which, last time i looked, was only on the Czech language menus) - raw mince, with a raw egg on top and some fried bread. random but kind of tasty!

for a trip like that you can get by on 25 quid a day for food & drink, but if you're with a group then budget a fair whack more, as your pissed up mates will probably drag you into a bunch of random bars.  and prague is very well set up for fleecing drunk britons.

Just going with the lady, so it'll be heavy drinking but quite controlled. Just after some decent clubs to hit and a few nice eateries

safety

in that case yeah try the potrefena husa restaurants for general decent food, or for good old fashioned czech food and noisy beerhall vibes try CAfe Olympia (just off a street called Ujezd, next to cafe Savoy which is also pretty nice) or Zlaty Klas near Andel metro.

for clubs, Roxy is ok but usually is full of americans, Cross Club is next to Holesovice metro and worth a look for the decor alone, my pick is probably Bukanyr which is just round the corner form Roxy - it's on a boat next to the bridge at the top of a street called Revolucni, usually has some decent house going on and is chilled enough that you can stroll in at 7am with a spliff in one hand and a beer you bought from a shop in the other.  Le Clan (just off Vinohradska, not far above Wenceslas square) is worth a squirt for afterclub vibes if you want to crack on into lunchtime and beyond.  can get messy!

if the weather's good then the parks are great.  Letenske Sady has an outdoor bar that overlooks the city, Divoka Sarka is half an hour out on a tram but it's basically a national park with an outdoor pool at the bottom of some cliffs.  well nice

@Steve - depends where you go.  if you're in the big boozy stag-party bars, or the touristy gaffs near the old town square (or the increasingly common high-society gaffs for posh russian kids) then expect to pay UK prices.  if you're in a bar where actual Czechs drink (there are plenty of these in the city centre, usually only a 5 or 10 minute walk away from the main tourist drags) then a pint is about £1.20. 

Likewise for food - a decent czech meal will set you back 6 - 8 quid in your average pork and dumpling place, or you can spend a shitload in a flashier restaurant.  Keep an eye out for Potrefena Husa places - http://www.staropramen.cz/husa/ - they're a chain run by Staropramen and they're a reliable option for good food, beer and reasonable prices.  They also sell tatarak (which, last time i looked, was only on the Czech language menus) - raw mince, with a raw egg on top and some fried bread. random but kind of tasty!

for a trip like that you can get by on 25 quid a day for food & drink, but if you're with a group then budget a fair whack more, as your pissed up mates will probably drag you into a bunch of random bars.  and prague is very well set up for fleecing drunk britons.

i would think the brisfest underground carpark is owned by @bristol and was obtained through the medium of cash

Of that I'm in no doubt, but you need someone to rubber stamp it all, licenses, permits, h&s inspections, add to all that the fact that in general the council isn't normally that compliant when it comes to clubbing and it certainly looks from the outside that someone must have a parent on the council or something. How else do you get Castle Park?

just to stick up for Alfresco for a second, I know that they spent literally months on this, doing all of the abovementioned; filling out risk assessment forms and licenses and all that shit.  They were also somewhat abetted by the 'royal wedding street party' occasion which suddenly opened a lot of doors for people who wanted to put on public parties.  it turns out that alfresco just happened to be the crew that were quick enough to spot an opportunity, and hardworking enough to follow it through. 

alfresco have a huge amount of goodwill in bristol because they've put the work in for years. 

They've used the sets and characters from this to make an anti-piracy ad for the cinema. They pull up along some guy who's been imprisoned in a cage, and when he says he got caught pirating movies they say "ha, serves you right. You should've stuck to plundering".

Yes. Instead of pirating movies you should go out and steal a load of treasure. Ideal.

Kind of puts a dent in Aardman's artistic integrity imo. 

Are you actually serious?

I took the advert in the jovial manner intended. But I do genuinely see FACT adverts et al as terribly manipulative things which I am generally turned off by, so yes I'm serious when i say it makes me have less respect for aardman.

Anti-piracy is a bad thing because...?

...it is based on the outdated and frankly untrue notion that a pirated copy is akin to a lost sale, the penalties are disproportionately harsh thanks to heavy political lobbying, copyright control does nothing to support anyone who can't afford to enforce it and thus makes the playing field uneven betweeen indies and large studios and it is not a good thing for creativity in the media industries. That goes for music and films imo. Copyright reform is sorely needed, and every increasingly insidious FACT advert is just another sign of a monolithic, practically jurassic industry resisting change and clinging to a long-standing monopoly.

copyright reform IS needed, but I'm not sure that Aardman, having basically bet the farm on this film, are necessarily cunts/artistically compromised for asking people not to rip it off

and frankly, when was the last time anyone saw a media company arguing that one pirated copy = one lost sale?  i'm starting to think it's a bit of a straw man for the anti-copyright brigade.  most people would agree that lots of piracy = reduced sales but that's about as far as it goes AFAICS

seen it in both 2D and 3D at test screenings as it happens, and i'd say it's definitely better in 2D.  in 3D it loses a lot of the background details which are very funny/clever/interesting

in general yeah i think its great - frenetic, silly, and i actually did laugh out loud a couple of times too

"ambient but fast paced"

well, you've certainly got the ol' creative director spiel down already.... 

 

become self employed, i go on strike every monday morning

Culture Bro goes to check out the new Costa coffee, gets a talking to from Dibble in Disguise

http://bristolculture.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/undercover-police-in-bristols-new-costa/#comments

oof, forgot to bump this earlier.  Anyway, it's tonight, I've got a stack of brilliant BANG0RZZZ and it's free to get in 

hmm, youtube fail.  2 secs.

Doing a night at Mother's Ruin next Friday - 30th September.  It's free to get in and runs 10 - 2.  I'll be playing a load of funk, soul, and as much of the Fania back catalogue as I can reasonably get away  

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210776885653177

here are a few likely cuts:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/8Ze4xTXI-xU" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/8Ze4xTXI-xU</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/lgByE1TRKEo" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/lgByE1TRKEo</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/h3auMB1-3JM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/h3auMB1-3JM</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/JWzncAROdIk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/JWzncAROdIk</a>

A few months back I had Mixmag offer me 'breaks tune of the month' and 5 stars for the EP I had out on Louse, but they needed a press photo at 24 hours notice.  I had no press photos and no inclination to get any done, so they bumped the review down to 4 starts and no tune of the month.  Fuck press photos imo  

the other year DJ Mag offered me & bao album of the month if we could supply an exclusive press photo by the end of the day.  we just nipped down to the indian takeaway at the end of the road and asked the guy behind the counter if he'd take a quick snap of us reading the menu.  job done! 

featuring unreleased stuff from the great and the good of Bristol's music scene, from Kowton and Arkist to Vessel and Hodge

http://nosinglereason.com/

direct download - http://c3335442.myzen.co.uk/NoSingleReasonBS2.mp3

mixcloud - http://www.mixcloud.com/NoSingleReason/no-single-reason-bs2

four internet points to anyone who can spot where the pic was taken.  clue:  it's somewhere in bs2 

couldn't find a Panhead thread when i searched, for some reason. 

Anyway, tune in at www.panhead.co.uk at 8pm this wednesday for some bumping house from October, and a special disco set from Borai - in support of their forthcoming release on Applepips.

and don't miss the next Panhead @ the Bank, featuring Arkist, Forsaken and my good self, on the 28th....

fuckin' loves it, i does.  spend a lot of time browsing this site http://fuckyeahbrutalism.tumblr.com/ 

swear there's a flea epidemic this summer.  everyone i know who's got a cat has been struggling with the little fuckers for the last 2 months

two wrongs! 

that makes one right

met a friend of the victim on saturday night.  apparently he was on the ground, surrounded by police, when they opened fire.  sounded well dodgy.  a lot of very angry people

this is my 3rd summer in bristol and they have all been remarkably shit.  and that was coming from manchester!  i used to think it was always sunny darn sarf 

7.20 Pick up dog shit from the garden
7.25 Make packed lunch

 

 

Woken up by resentful wife who is determined that I don't get another 2 hours sleep.

   

Didn't they already do it in Portugal a while back? Something like you can legally own a certain amount of drugs, like an ounce of weed, X number of pills, X number of grams of coke/MDMA etc?

and CZ.  weed has been basically legal in Czech Rep for years, but they enshrined it into law a couple of years back.... http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy/2009/dec/15/europe_czech_government_announce

very annoying when you're trying to get served and some knobber is skinning up on the bar!  

hmmm.  Looks rather bubble-like at the moment...?

not surprised.  arsehole.

is that how you're signing your messages these days? 

boom boom!     

he is famous for being a cunt though. 

not surprised.  arsehole.

i was having a chat with a man called Geraint Hussain Depardieu.  He is an ex member of the Bilderburg group and he said there is actually no 9/11 conspiracy, some foreigners just did it all for the lulz.

QED

kicking off around 10pm i reckon.  Shake off that post-SGP comedown with a couple of pints of Gem 

or, of course, you can listen and watch online at www.panhead.co.uk

yeah looks shopped to me.  the camera would appear to be about 20ft away from the plane, and if i was ever on a plane that was climbing that steeply i would be vigorously shitting myself...

yeah yeah alright

yeah looks shopped to me.  the camera would appear to be about 20ft away from the plane, and if i was ever on a plane that was climbing that steeply i would be vigorously shitting myself...

Heard Tesco is the one! There is a fairly decent booze emporium just on Wenceslas that has the kind of spirit I'm after. Coming back today so want a bottle. Already have my 24% stout and Absinthe sorted.

if you haven't already, be sure to pick up a bottle of Slivovice (plum brandy).  less viciously unpleasant than absinth, and also less mental (but still lively) - a bit like a Czech tequila...

....but come to think of it, if you want £4 bottles of absinth and beers for 20p, you'll have to head all the way back to 2003 

are you going?

it's all much of a muchness IIRC - Tesco is as good a place as any (there's a central one at Narodni Trida), there used to be a decent booze shop on Dlouha, just along from the Roxy, or just any old Vietnamese-run Vecerka (a kind of small grocers that you see around the place).  You won't find one on Wenceslas or the old town Square, but you won't have to wander too far to find one...

I don't know a single person that takes ketamine. Your average Joe does not hit the wonk at any given chance. I don't get why you think there's some massive love in Bristol for it. It's always been a stupid idea to ramp yourself up with a tranquiliser.

come on, this city is awash with it.  i don't do K and neither do my friends but i've never seen as many ketted up wreckheads staggering about as i have in the 18 months i've spent living in bristol... perhaps that's because i spend my time in easton and stokes croft but it still amazes me even now.

i reckon you could almost move the shangri-la part (i.e. the blade-runner tunnels etc) to a completely different part of the site - it's so good that it's almost like some interactive theatre shit.  that would free up more space for the clubs like block 9, the bull ring, etc.  But yeah, generally I'm not sure it worked too well - to the extent that when I got a text on Saturday night saying "orbital are playing right now on arcadia!" i looked at the time, figured they would probably have finished by the time i'd queued up, and fucked it off 

Janelle Monae
Shangri-La
that maddie little underground bar near the stone circle that you had to go through a tunnel to get into


totally agree that the queues to get into arcadia were a shitter though.   and the queues for some of the stuff once you were in there!

I'm not trying to be funny right but if these projects had found their empty, delapidated, worthless buildings and went to the landlords and said "give us dirt cheap rent"

if the landlord didn't even respond when the Council told him they were gonna take his property off him, why would he respond to a bunch of people saying "give us dirt cheap rent"?