Get yer party outfit on, it’s the bank holiday Weekender!

Date
22 August 2014

In London, the August bank holiday weekend is all about Notting Hill Carnival. Whether you’re staunchly refusing to go to it in favour of sitting at home in a grump, the first person to stick gold ostrich feathers to your best pants or already knocking back the “mix-them-in-your-mouth rum cocktails!” and having a bash on your steel pans in preparation (in which case you’re two full days early, chill out yeah?) we’re ready to get you started with our weekly instalment of tomfoolery. Crack right on!

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Allan “Capitan” Thornhill: Untitled

– Listen to Rob and James getting a bit riled up over hospital art in this week’s Studio Audience podcast.

– We asked how you think It’s Nice That should feature music in the Opinion piece. Add your comments at the bottom!

– Photographer Catherine Losing shared her five favourite books with us in this week’s rather exceptional Bookshelf.

– Check out some of the best stuff we got sent, including a bunch of zines and a life-size illustration of an intestine, in this week in Things.

– Going to Notting Hill carnival this weekend? Get in the mood with Bradley Zero’s Carnival-themed mixtape!

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

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MORE FM: Sandwich Thief

Maisie Skidmore

Occasionally a shared fridge at work can be the cause for some dispute. This absolute gem of a photo-series, which MORE FM posted this week, is a testament to just how hard things can get, and the fact that the images look like they might have been taken on a Motorola flip phone only adds to the comic effect. Sandwich thief, we sympathise.

Rob Alderson

The nature of the professional world – particularly in a social media-obsessed culture where boasting about how amazing everything is can be competitive – means that people very rarely talk about failure. Huge kudos then to Gemma Germains of Well Made studio for this open, funny and fascinating meditation on the pitches that didn’t go so well.

Amy Lewin

I’ve seen this list, or a similar one of untranslatable words, floating about in the virtual ocean that is the internet before. But now Guardian journalist David Shariatmadari has translated them, or so he says. My favourite is still the German “Waldeinsamkeit”: a feeling of being alone in the woods and connected to nature.

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Pop Sonnets

On a similarly poetic, wordy note, Rosamund Urwin (mega-babe at the Evening Standard tweeted this blog of pop songs written in sonnet form. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 14 lines is quite something.

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Marina Abramović Made Me Cry

James Cartwright

Although this blog appears to poke fun at the Brazilian people – who suffered emotionally during this year’s World Cup final – and in many ways is incredibly mean-spirited, it IS very funny. It’s also lazy; whoever made it couldn’t even be bothered to find multiple pictures of Marina Abramović to add some variation into the mix. But isn’t it reassuring to know that it’s possible to be lazy and cruel with hilarious results? No? Just me maybe.

Liv Siddall

In 1976 a hippy teacher strode into a Canadian school and, disregarding the curriculum, began to teach the bored kids rock and roll music to energise them. The kids loved it and it turned into a four year project involving all the schools in the area. They eventually pressed it on to 300 records and it’s gone down in history as one of the most collectable records due to its magical story. They even made a Hollywood blockbuster out of it! (School of Rock).

I’ve long been spending my time listening to the Langley Schools Music Project and dreaming about the atmosphere in those stuffy old schools in the 70s and the sweet children bashing on instruments and crowing into oversized microphones. Now the whole story is on Radio 4 in an amazing radio documentary including interviews from the actual kids and the actual teacher Hans Fenger. Anyone who’s into music, or the joys of life, get involved.

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