This Week In London #10 - Mayfair, A May Fair

Many thanks to Steven Crosby for suggesting our destination this week. We're in Mayfair this time, spending time looking in the shops, pubs and restaurants with a little diversion into the arboretum.

Music is provided by The Tacticians with their lovely song "London's Alright", 3 Blind Mice with Watchstar and Hungry Lucy with Shine. I forgot how good these bands were. I've really got to play more Hungry Lucy...

You can play the show by clicking the left hand player (the green PuPu player) at the top or the heading at the top of this posting or you could even press here and listen.

I'm thinking of going on location next time and doing another WhereTheHeckIsHe? Competition. Harder this time. Much Much Harder. What do you think? Was it fun or was it rubbish last time? Let me know eh?

Keep the emails coming in - I do answer all of them and they are all welcome. If you have a favo(u)rite area of London why don't you email me and tell me why you like it? I very well might feature it!

If you want to Skype me, please do - just call Parkylondon!

Thanks for letting me take 30 minutes of your time today. Much appreciated. Have a nice one.

TWIL Episode 9 - Shakespeares Sprinklers

Hi there. Welcome to Episode 9 (Nine) of This Week In London. If you're here from my Podshow page then this IS Episode 9 and not 8 as advertised.. I'm tired. I'm sorry....

Direct link to the show here and don't forget you can use the players at the top of this page to listen as well. You can also subscribe (for free!) via iTunes or using your favourite podcatching software.

On with the shownotes then. I kick off with a track call Dislocated which is actually by Ellie Myles and Slashed Seat Affair. Thanks go out to Paul Nicholls for sending the track over and then following tout suite with the artiste - I really had no idea who it was! You can find Slashed Seat Affair here and Ellie Myles here.

I'm on the South Bank this time with a family stroll on a wonderful spring afternoon from London Bridge; we take in a reprise of Borough Market on a very busy afternoon and then on to The Globe Theatre and past the Royal Festival Hall on to the London Eye. A lovely walk and well worth you going on if you have a spare hour or so to kill.

Other music is provided by The Amateur Transplants with London Underground (cleaned up mix) and you can find the *explicit* (I mean it - you have been warned) here.

I'm a bit naughty with the last track and play a track by Jonas Hellborg which I think is awesome - it's Touch My Soul from the album Axis. It's kind of hard to come by but there is a link on Amazon here... Sixty six quid seems a bit steep but then again it's not on Ebay...

There you have it - hope you enjoy it. Please do keep the emails coming in I do appreciate it. Link on the side to get in touch. You can Skype me at "Parkylondon"!

Brace yourselves...

I'm doing a show tonight. Items to be covered are: Derelict London and Cockney Rhyming Slang... plus I'll do a run down of the top attractions in London. I'm sure I'll have an anecdote or two too!

Greetings from Abu Dhabi

I'll be posting information about my trip to Abu Dhabi on www.theflashing12.com - I won't pollute this London blog with that kind of info!

TWIL Episode 8 - Grinnidge

Here's the latest show - I'm packing for a business trip to Abu Dhabi and Dubai right now so will be out of touch (pretty much) until this time next week. I'll do full show notes while I'm away from the business centre at the hotel - I hope.

As you might guess this show is about Greenwich in London. I'll definately be revisiting this in the future as I barely scatched the surface of the wonderful place.

I. Got. Guinness. Marmite. Tasting. On. The. Show. Huzzah...

Congrats to Mark Yoshimoto Nemkoff for BRTC. Looks like it was a BIG success!

More from Abu Dhabi where I hope to meet up with "Malcolm from Abu Dhabi" as featured on the DSC...

Bum Rush

I just posted this on Digg under the BRTC item

Quote

Black Lab are NOT signed to a label. They used to be and had a huge fight with the labels to get their music back. it is for that reason that Black Lab were chosen.

The point in using a large, mainstream, music delivery channel (iTunes) was to maximise the chance of getting notice. iTunes may have DRM embedded in its very soul (and I think it sucks they can't let CC or freeware tracks through without adding it) but iTunes reports to the "charts" so it's important to take advantage of that fact. If we can get enough people to buy or gift the track to someone else then it'll chart and send a message to BigMedia about how podcasting and podcasters can move the market.

BRTC is all about podcasting and getting BigMedia to sit up and take notice of the power of podcasting. It's not necessarily about "sticking it to the man" although that would be nice.
Black Lab are giving half their income to the charitable cause behind this. I think that's commendable. They didn't have to.

I fully support BRTC and will be buying the track as soon as I get home this evening. The people behind this are honest decent hardworking people. There is no hidden agenda here. There is no scam.

At the end of the day if you don't agree with it don't do it. Nobody is forcing you.

Paul Parkinson
Editor, Podcast User Magazine
Unquote

I'll probably get tons of flak for it but it needed to be summarised.

BUM RUSH NOW!

Go to http://bumrushthecharts.blogspot.com/ and hit the BIG RED BUTTON.

Let's do it folks!

It's arrived....

My Guinness Marmite has arrived.... Mmmmm. Guinness. Mmmmm. Marmite. Arghughugh...

TWIL Episode 7 - Suicide Girl

Welcome to the shownotes of the 7th episode of the This Week In London podcast. Direct link here or you can listen in the sidebar!

I'm happy to announce Brendan as the winner of the competition as he accurately worked out I was in Hoxton Square. Well done Brendan - I've sent you an email to confirm the details.

In this weeks show I played Mine Again by Black Lab, the song chosen for the Bum Rush The Charts take over. No link to the song here - please buy it on the 22nd March and make a difference. Black Lab are donating half their earnings from the sales of the song so credit and kudos to them for that.

I play a radio interview that Mark Yoshimoto Nemkoff and I did on BBC Radio 5 Live about BRTC which was a lot of fun. Sorry about my voice on this interview - I was getting over a really bad throat infection. There is a picture (NOT for the faint hearted) here.

One of the hosts of the radio show (not Chris Vallance, an altogether Good Chap) is a bit of an arse at the end of the piece but whatever - it's up to us to prove him wrong.



Finally, I tell a story about an incident I personally experienced on the London Underground. It was a lot harder to tell than I thought it would be. I think, listening to it again, you can appreciate how hard. The story is where I get the title for this show. At least she lived.

Stay tuned - I've got a great show planned covering Berwick Street in the next couple of weeks. Celebrity interviews no less! woot!!

This Week In London #6 - Driving To Distraction

Hi there

Sorry for the delay in getting these shownotes out to you all. I’ve been pretty unwell and haven’t had the energy to do anything much. Anyways – better late than never eh!

Here is the direct link to the show

If you want to Digg This Week In London please do! You can find the page for it here

The Congestion Charge - here is the map of the congestion charge zone

For those of you who want to learn more about the Love/Hate relationship we have with
Marmite - follow the link!

Featured tracks this time are from

Bloom with Shoulder To Cry On

and

Small Town Sleeper with Car Crash

This last track (played first in the show) is a special, one-off show for Rorin after the event of the tracks name! Best of luck getting the car back on the road Rorin and give Saskia a big hug from me eh?

Competition Number 1 will close this Friday 9^th 2007

Shownotes delayed

I'm feeling ruddy awful at the moment - I have some sort of ear nose and throat infection which has knocked me sideways for a few days. Shownotes for TWiL#6 will follow shortly.

There will now be a short intermission.

Bum Rush The Charts

Not sure our American friends really know the meaning of a bum rush but the concept is good. Glad they've chosen a Black Lab track - Neil Bearse, BL's podcast marketing manager (yeah, yeah, Neil I know it's a made up title - but it's a great one donchafink?) is a good guy and I WILL get that interview one day!

More information here...

The best Marmite ever?! !?

For those of you who are haters look away! For those of us who are lovers of its creamy, sticky texture and throat searing strength, the World that is Marmite just took an unexpected, but very welcome turn.That's right. Marmite Guinness. Guinness flavoured Marmite. It is just screaming "BUY ME". I can't wait. But then I don't have to. All I need to do is get myself down to a supermarket and buy it. It's a 300,000 jar limited edition available in the UK for £2.49 (about $5) and I will be buying a few, one of which will be winging its way to the US for Dave to try out.

OMG. Guinness flavoured Marmite. Yay. Needless to say this delicacy will be appearing in the next This Week In London - if I can find it....

Competition entries

Hi there from Grenoble in South Eastern France - the land of the AZERTY keyboqrd; it takes for ever to type qs every A comes out qs q A! The keyboard layout reverses the letter Q qnd the letter A... Arghhh...

I an delighted to say there have been many entries to the Where Am I competition! Plenty of time to enter the competition though as I'll be drqwing the winner in time for the podcqst I aim to do over next weekend.

James, as featured in the competition, has been skiing and snowboarding for the lasr couple of days and is now exhausted!

See you all later

Paul

This Week In London #5 - First Competition

==>Sorry about the faux pas on the files front. The links here are correct. More haste less speed is the old saying. So true. So very very true....
==============

Welcome and here is This Week In London #5. In this episode I launch the first TWiL competition - all you need are keen ears and and encyclopaedic knowledge of London. Or Google. Whatever.

I'll give USD20 (twennybucks) as an Amazon voucher or equivalent to the lucky winner. If there's more than one I'll have a draw. Just tell me where I am in London. S'easy!

On tonight's show I play London by The Tragedy Kings from the Podsafe Music Network. You can find their MySpace account here.

Borough Market threatened....

The following was sent to me by a listener and by someone who works near the market.

"Borough Market is London's oldest market. It was established on the south bank of the Thames when the Romans build the first London Bridge and people have been trading on this site for over 2000 years.

Some bright spark has decided to expand the railway line running through the roof of the market, which will also involve knocking down 23 of the beautiful listed and unlisted buildings in the closely surrounding area.

They already have planning permission, but are waiting funding and there is a strong local campaign to put a stop to it.

If you know and love the market in its present state, please sign the petition to prevent this from happening. The plans, photographs and the petition are HERE.

Unfortunately not a lot of people are aware of it so please sign it and pass it on to anyone else you know who loves this great bit of London heritage."

Now for my (Parky's) twopenn'rth:-

As well as being an amazing place in its own right, the streets round the market have been in many films. One, Park Street, which will be devastated by these developments was featured in Snatch and key buildings near the market featured in the Knight Bus sequence from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Finally, Bridget Jones' Diary 2 was filmed in the Market. All those great films were made in Borough Market because of its unique location. Why ruin it?

Do not pass go. Do not collect £200. Go straight to the petition site and do your best to protect the market!

Steady progress in iTunes....

Just noticed TWiL is #22 in the Arts page / chart thingy in iTunes. I'm so happy... thanks.

Updated Posting for Show #2

31/01/2007: Edit - I have now included some pictures to give you more of a flavour of Borough Market (sorry about the pun!)

Permalink here

Watch this space!

I'm working on a competition for the show...

"Where Am I in London?"

I'll go somewhere in London and describe it - you email in and tell me where I am.

I'm aiming to get it kicked off in time for the next show.

Not exactly going to be "Win Valuable Prizes" but I might be able to throw an Amazon voucher in for the lucky winner!

This Week in London - Episode 4

Here are the show notes for TWiL #4.

First off I'm very pleased to be on the Staff Picks section of iTunes. Thanks to whoever did that. I'm delighted to have found a format that works for me and that more people are getting in on the act - i.e. getting the podcast. Thanks to the new listeners for trying me out.

Don't be scared to leave a comment (I don't bite) or send me an email - there's a link to the left.

You can listen to the show by clicking HERE or on the PUPU player on the left, below the show picture.

I play a couple of corking tracks in this episode -

London Girl by Lato who have their own web page here
and
londontown by the divineMAGgees who have their own web page here

If you are a band recording in London, based in London or have a song about London please do point me towards it or send me an MP3. I'll take a listen and slot it into the show. I'm not scared of different types of music - so don't be shy.

In this show I finish off the Airport transfer round up (well nearly I forgot Stanstead but that's easy - just take the Stanstead Express to Liverpool Street Station) and talk about black cabs, measuring distance to London and I have a bit of a rant about The O2... I enjoyed doing this show a lot and I think the format is developing nicely.

If you have any ideas of what I can talk about, sections I can include or anything that would make the show better please do get in touch.

I'll tell a few more stories about Hammersmith Odeon next time. As I recall all of them seem to involve alcohol, loud (very loud) heavy metal and Underground trains.

Thanks for looking, thanks for listening.

Have a great time until next time.

Parky