Thom Hoffman's Flu Movie Review

I had a bad cold/virussey thing this week, on the back of travelling for a month, I've had time to watch all of the films. I love good films, but hate wasting time on bad ones, and have usually had my fill of looking at glowing rectangle screens for work. Anyway here is my flu movie review. There may be 3-4 of these annually, but do not seek a doctor for minor side effects.

American Movie

A documentary about a filmmaker who is a bit of a social misfit, trying to finish his projects and come to terms with the hands he's been dealt, and the cards he's thrown on the floor, and occasionally set fire to. It's kind of heart-warming, but with slightly sinister overtones.

I'm also kind of in love with his friend Mike, who is a great cinematic character, genuinely loveable and probably a very good warning on why you should not do all of the drugs.

It's good for demonstrating the role of creating art in curing, and causing many psychological problems.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

This is another documentary with slightly less blurred lines between creative expression and mental health. Daniel Johnston is a folk musician and artist, who first caught my ear upon hearing his particularlarly weird, haunting, catchy, cute songs of love, hope and despair.

I've always loved music that comes from the heart, and creative expression that reaches past production values and just kicks you in the soul. His crackly vocals, might not win a singing contest, but that leaves the other expressive elements a gap to fight their way in to.

This is not a sentimental view of mental health problems either, you see the effect on Daniel, and his family as his irrational behaviour takes over. Including when having a paranoid manic episode he runs up to confront a lady who has been shouting at him from her apartment, the lady subsequently jumps out of a second floor window, breaking both her ankles.

The tragedy of mental health problems, the ups and downs that occupy any artistic career are amplified hugely and the portrait painted in this documentary is complex, and thought provoking, whilst soundtracked, and filled with Daniel's music and art.

The Great Hip-Hop Hoax: Silibil n' Brains

Little known to me until watching this documentary, I had a sticker of hip hop group Silibil n' Brains on the back of my guitar from the early noughties. I wonder what stage of their journey I would've found this sticker, during the height of the hype, or when they were on the way down with a lot of stickers to get rid of and no record released...

It's a great story about two scottish rappers from Dundee, who tried to make it in London only to be dismissed as the rapping proclaimers. Hurt and pissed off that they were not being taken seriously, they decided to adopt new accents, move south of the border and try and blag it as Californian skate punk rappers. Within a couple of weeks they'd gone from sleeping on their sister's floor, to having a flat paid for and access to a huge advance with studios to record in. It seemed too good to be true, and it was a lie, but no-one realised...

The story of how this happened, the consequences, the ironic beauty of beating a music industry at it's own game, is weighed with the strains on a friendship and the issues or pretending to be something you're not all the time. Great documentary that Storyville picked up. Well worth watching if you get a chance.

Once

The music theme continued with this very different film which is kind of a mumblecore, naturalistic romantic comedy musical type film. I watched this on my laptop on the Megabus going from Washington to New York so was pretty keen for some escapism. It's a very cute film, with some great music.

I first saw Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova perform on one of NPR's fantastic tiny desk concert sessions, and the powerful raw vocals, and dense guitar work really blew me away.

They seemed like funny cool guys too. They are not actors and this kind of shows through, though predominantly in a good way. Handheld cameras, handheld performance and realistic dialogue ensure this never veers to far into saccharine territory, and just comes across as a life affirming, sweet film, that avoids cliche enough and showcases their excellent musicianship.

Sleepwalk with Me

NPR have their hand in this movie too as it's produced by Ira Glass of This American Life fame. It's the, seemingly true to life, story of comedian Mike Birbiglia and his travails with forging a career in comedy, and a career in life. Naturalistic acting comes across here too, it's a very cute film, worth seeking out, though probably don't watch it with your partner if your relationship is a little on the rocks. Maybe watch Once instead.

Untouchable

This film had great reviews this year, so I bought it on itunes. The front cover and the poster make it look like the worst film in all of human history, a young black guy is skipping, pushing, an older white man in a wheelchair down a hill with paragliders in the background. I can see how the marketing department had a tough job, as one of this films strengths is avoiding the typical, refusing to be captured too simplistically, which ain't so great for posters. This film cheered me up a great deal, it's a bit cheesy, but not too much that it's annoying. Hollywood, I know you're reading this, take note. This can be done.

5 Broken Cameras

Finally as my weekend of staying in and recovering drew to a close I watched 5 Broken Cameras, a fascinating documentary about Israel/Palestine and the West Bank, as shot through a demonstrator's eyes, and several of his cameras. You are engrossed from the first minute. This film has got you. The device of telling the story through each of his cameras as they degrade, get shot at, and damaged, lends itself a great narrative arc. It leaves you feeling moved, angry, and impressed with non-violent resistance in the face of overt aggression. It's pretty hard to imagine what you would do in this situation, as a filmmaker myself, it was a choice for me. For Emad, this is his route to salvation, his way of taking power back, and protecting himself against external forces and the reality of his situation. When you have no control, it's easy to become hopeless or hostile. When someone breaks your first camera, it's easy to give up or react to the provocation. Who can say what we would've done in his situation. It's clearly a complex area, but you should really watch this film, it will make you want to understand more.

The humble Braggs and X-ray crystallography: Solving the patterns of matter

Lastly is a shout for a film I watched about 30 times this month, because I made it. It's a little hard for me to tell how good this is, probably have to look at it again in a year when I have some distance. It's gone down really well though, and thanks to everone who tweeted it and shared it around, it means a lot.

One Youtube comment says 'I've seldom seen a more boring documentary about such a most remarkable person! Shame on you for wasting 9 minutes on this botched up "whatshallwecallit".'

ouch, but the person who wrote it, only seems to like Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares.

So I'll be taking that as a compliment.

Cheers

Thom

@thomhoffman

http://thomhoffman.co.uk

Into The Wild

Two weeks before I was due to fly to the Himalayas, I found myself sat in the Royal Free hospital in North London with 1st and 2nd degree burns on 7 of my fingers, stinking of smoke and burnt plastic, with my hands in a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. My mind began flitting between thoughts of pain, and guilt, and constantly back to anxiety as to how I’d somehow managed to get into this insane situation, and whether my mountain adventure was now over, a fortnight before it was due to start. My laptop charger overheated and set fire to various parts of my bedroom, fortunately I was upstairs at the time and eventually the aforementioned gross burning smell attracted my attention. I managed to stop the fire before burning down the whole house. Unfortunately my hands got burnt in the process.

I thought the trip would be off.

Well I could've done without this...

Fortunately all of the doctors and nurses I saw were incredibly helpful, I avoided anything likely to give me an infection and, I managed make enough of a recovery, just about in time.

So I made it to the plane, and into another series of unknowns. The highest altitude I’d done before was probably somewhere near Watford. The trip had been kind of last minute and the fire had reduced any ‘worry time’ as I had to deal with the array of overwhelming logistics involved in filming in a dusty, hot, freezing, dark, bright, electricity-starved environment. Basically buying tons of equipment, and consulting Dr Google for advice.

I was headed out to document a research project called Xtreme Everest 2. A study taking healthy volunteers on a trek up to Everest Base Camp, testing them all along the way, and seeing how they reacted to the differing altitude and the ever-decreasing availability of oxygen.

The mountains

The mountains are useful for research because the low oxygen levels that are normal up here mimic a problem faced by thousands of people in intensive care back down at sea level. If the house fire had gone on for 15 more minutes the smoke inhalation could have seen me hitting dangerously low levels of oxygen myself.

The plane ride into the terrifyingly tiny landing strip at the foot of the mountains was probably when I started to realise just how alien this was going to be. As I filmed on the tiny, shaky, Yeti airline plane I wasn’t really paying too much attention to the outside world. Normally this diversion from the present is my least favourite thing about filming, but this time I was grateful for the distraction. I’m not a delighted flyer. Despite having a Masters in Science [however tenuous] I still don’t really trust that aeroplanes can actually work, it doesn’t seem right does it?

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We hit the tiny runway and didn’t crash into the mountain at the end of it, no more motorized movement for a month.

As I went to bounce excitedly up the steps outside Lukla airport I was suddenly hit by how tiny my lungs seemed to have become. It wasn’t like I was feeling particularly tired, I just was conscious of every step I made. Walking was suddenly a ‘thing’.

A friend who has Rheumatoid arthritis mentioned how she feels like she has ‘tokens’ of energy that she can use each day. If she wants to cook a big meal, then that’s her

token used up so she can’t go out that night, or go swimming as she’ll be using tomorrow’s token, leaving her unable to get out of bed in the morning. It kind of hit home to me, how dependent I was on my physiology. I still had to go 3000m higher and I was feeling it already.

My favourite photo from the whole trip

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The second night in, I began to notice it affecting my brain too. Words don’t come to you so easily. Even having conversations with people becomes difficult as thinking guzzles your precious oxygen. My chat usually gets me in and out of most problems each day, but it was in short supply.

I guess I was acclimatising because eventually this stopped being quite so noticeable. I think I understood what I was capable of, how many tokens I had,and just scaled down my ambitions to suit that. You literally can’t do what you would at sea level. I’m used to working a full day with coffee and inhaled pollution for sustenance when a difficult shoot is at stake. But up there it’s impossible. The difficulty of lugging heavy camera gear around, constantly thinking, and concentrating on filming in a bastard awkward environment takes a big toll. But once you’ve adapted to what your abilities are, as long as you live within those and take it slow, you cope.

Filming was hard. It’s a ridiculously difficult environment, but I’ll probably write a whole post about that another time….

We stayed in tea houses which are basically wooden hut type things, they are very basic, but pretty comfortable and way better than sleeping in a tent. My ridiculously huge sleeping bag kept me warm and I found I slept really well on the mountain.

One hut in Dingboche was covered in flies which doesn’t fill you with confidence, and pretty soon sickness came to our group. But it did mean I could take this cool photo of a fly attacking a mountain, so it’s swings and roundabouts.

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I went up to Loboche Pass which is the memorial for all those who have died attempting to summit Everest. It was a spooky place, hundreds of piles of stones and prayer flags commemorating the dead. It becomes clear that the higher and higher up the mountain you go the better the view gets. I’d never understood why you’d want to climb Everest, but looking up at these incredible peaks, I could comprehend it marginally more. The desire to stand at the top of the world is pretty powerful once it gets in your head. Despite this, the whole trip, I never once felt like I would ever want to try and summit Everest. Crazy people.

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I got to climb one mountain called Kala Patthar. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. There was a realistic chance I could have died, clambering to the summit over a tangled web of decaying prayer flags, with absolute certain death on my left if I tripped or got caught by a gust of wind. It was incredible. Here is a photo of me on the summit and my eyes are half closed and I look stoned.

Thom_KalaPattar

It’s something like being on drugs [I would guess] it’s not reality, your body is firing at your mind, grasping, and failing, to deal with where you are and how you should feel about it. I made a quick film whilst on top…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr2c4xFwPfc&w=640&h=360]

I felt changed as I walked down. Then I realised I’d left a glove somewhere half way down on a rock and it struck me that I probably hadn’t changed too much.

This is a photo of me after walking for two hours and discovering my room key from the previous night’s lodge. Fortunately my Sherpa Passang just handed it to the next guy coming down who laughed at me, and took it down the mountain with him. This probably sums up my entire experience with the Nepalese people. Fun, cheeky, friendly, and so keen to help.

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As we reached Everest Base Camp I was feeling really strong, I was in good shape, still hadn’t taken as much as a paracetemol in the preceding 20 days. Having said that I drank a lot of Tang, which is a kind of fruity sugar powder, and I think contains all the drugs, and is highly illegal in most continents.

Sleeping on ice is strange,

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This looks pretty uncomfortable but when you’re exhausted you tend to sleep pretty well. The guys at Base Camp have an incredible set up. There are no solid structures up there, only tents, fancy tents, I’ll give them that, but it’s such hard work being up there. They are there doing research in this environment for up to 3 months at a time.

One Sherpa carried an exercise bike up the mountain on his back. That made me feel less proud of my achievement of making it there. It reminded me of the time I got overtaken by a man dressed as bee in the Swindon half marathon.

The people I got to hang out with on the trip were so ace. It was great to get to know my two working buddies really well, we didn't argue [much], and I learned a lot from them. Spending a month with people, and within a culture, makes it impossible for you not be to be influenced by both. All the volunteers on the trip were there because they really cared about the science. You speak to one person, they are part time doctor/part time mountain rescuer, doing this in there holiday time. You had nurses, doctors, scientists, and ambitious students. They were a fun bunch of people. It made me want to get involved in these things more often. I’m pretty outdoorsy, but considering I’ve lived in the UK forever, and not climbed Snowdon or Ben Nevis, been to the highlands, or the New Forest is borderline criminal, if the people who do it are as cool as the guys I met on Everest, then it’s a no brainer. Think how fun we would all be with 50% extra oxygen to play with. Eventually we would find out when we got back to Kathmandu after a month in the mountains, it was pretty nuts. They were even nicer and more fun, we all smelled better when we got back to bricks, mortar, cars, and rum.

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share_Sand

I felt like I needed more acclimatisation going from the sparse mountains to insanity of Kathmandu than I did going up to Base Camp. Everything was fast, polluted, and noisy. I still found the locals to be super friendly, not the kind of hassle I expected before I got there.

I would love to go back to Nepal, it was my first proper travel trip and I need to do it more. My rucksack that was with me every day for a month looks empty, and depressed in the attic, but we will ride again.

Prayer_Flag_LADS

I’m really grateful for Greg Foot taking a gamble of bringing me out with him. I think we’ve made some great content. Below is a film I edited from the footage shot up the mountain. I hope you like it.

For more on the science and the insanity of working at Base Camp check out our film on the Guardian and Ri Channel:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=watch?v=tovsOiSvZ_c&w=560&h=315] Watch the full video with photos here: http://www.richannel.org/xtreme-everest

I should probably shave my moustache and terrible beard off now.

Not quite yet though. But maybe soon.

I tried to read ‘If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller’ by Italo Calvino on the mountain, but it was so mind melting that I literally couldn’t cope [This also happened when I tried to watch Looper on the flight on the way home]

I read it on the way home and it changed me; probably almost as much as going up that mountain, read it. It’s cheaper than a month expedition to Everest.

Let’s go on an ADVENTURE again soon yeah?

Some good links:

Greg Foot's Website [including links to a schools science show tour based on the adventure]:

Jenna Wiley's Blog - Detailing one of the volunteers adventures in travelling and science

Some badass Tweeter's from the trip

Greg - @GregFoot

Emily - @ejghio

Nick - @NickInsley22

Jenna - @wilesjm

and me too if you like @thomhoffman

share_Anne

Meat-Free Mondays and Tuesdays

This isn't a very good photo, but you get the point

HAPPY NEW YEAR

This year I did a New Year’s Resolution, I can’t remember ever having done one before. Usually it’s something like write a novel, or get ripped abs by Summer. Then, Summer is two hot weeks in May and my schedule is all out of whack, my abs remain unripped, and my novel remains unfinished [Though I have the title – the Thommunist Hoffmanifesto].

Cognitive Dissonance is the psychologist’s term for the uncomfortable gap between what we know we should do and what we actually do do, and this spreads across all our lives. Phoning our family, drinking too much, failing to exercise enough, give to charity… the list is long. I fail at all of these things. I guess it always feels like there’s another day to do them and so they don’t happen enough.

One thing that struck me last year was how difficult it is to ignore the harmful effect of eating meat. Whichever way you add it up, meat is pretty bad for the environment. It is tasty, correct, but the memory of taste doesn’t linger very long, and my growing unease with meat has been getting stronger.

I decided full-on vegetarianism would be a bit of a stretch for me, but I wanted to shift my relationship with meat. I had heard of Meat free Mondays, but that sounded a bit too easy, so I decided I would do ‘Meat free Mondays and Tuesdays’.

As this has come up in conversation over the year, I’ve been surprised by how people’s reactions vary. Some people think this is the easiest thing ever, and some people think it’s almost impossible. It goes to show how our relationships with food are so ingrained.

This was a challenge to that ingrained nature. When it comes to making decisions we are often driven by our unconscious, meaning that things like habit and taste have a disproportionate effect on our decision making, compared to longer term health, wellbeing, or social implications.

I wanted to pick two specific days because just picking any two days of the week seemed like I would still be being guided by my own tastes. I wanted to disrupt that a bit. Put myself in situations and experience them as a vegetarian. If I went to a dinner party I have to do the vegetarian thing, BBQ, I’m having some mushrooms. And finally… What is the last Tuesday of the year…? I looked it up in around August, it was Christmas…

Vegetarian Christmas Dinner

It was a great meal, and it’s fine to do it without meat, not a big sacrifice at all.

My Tips are: stock up on chickpeas and lentils, super easy to cook. Vegetable curries are ace. Mushrooms are THE BEST things, and eat a lot of soup. Homemade soup is off the hook tasty and very cheap. Develop an obsession with falafel.

I think there is something intrinsically interesting about actively fighting your normal patterns of behaviour and ‘forcing’ yourself to make positive choices that bridge the gap towards the person you like being. It really isn't a big sacrifice, but it's a small thing thats had a long-term difference I'm really glad I did it.

It’s hard to see how anything bad could come from this. I would recommend it as an experiment to everyone. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do for 2013, apart from write my novel, learn Swedish and get some sweet ripped guns, but my relationship with meat is better in 2013 than it was in 2011.

Happy New Year,

‘Change the things I can, accept the things I can’t and the wisdom to know the difference.’

*I did accidentally eat chicken soup on a Monday after I’d been in bed ill for 5 days and lost track of what day it was.  Initially I was really annoyed that I’d failed my challenge, but I traded it off with no meat for the rest of the week.

** I think I ate some chicken crisps on New Year’s Eve

***Here is a good recipe for a Mushroom Ale and Lentil Pie mmm http://allotment2kitchen.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/mushroom-puy-lentils-and-ale-pie.html

PIETIME

Best of 2012 - End of the Year List on Culture Badger

Time to review the year, what have we been up, what do we like, what might you have missed? I invented the adverb Douchebaggely

I made a party playlist so you can listen to that if you need something in your ears... http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/PARTAYB/80469422

2012 was the year Culture Badger went semi-freelance as a film maker, which means half of the time things are manic, and half the time I'm doing some epic PROcrastination so here is what I've found that's made my life better this year...

GO.....

GO

CLASSIC TOP OF THE POPS - This is just dynamite

My soul melted a bit listening to this album of songs and stories, detailing heartbreak, tall tales, and moving on. Daniel Kitson and Gavin Osborn - Ballad of Roger and Grace, MORE  STUFF LIKE THIS PLEASE MRS INTERNET. That can be yours for £2.50 on Bandcamp 

THIS SUMS UP 2012 / ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY

Goats mushrooms

One of the Best things I saw this year - Chat Roulette Carly Rae Jepsen, man in bikini and weird faces

Closely followed by Sexy Sax Man...

This really stopped me in my tracks. John Hockenberry on disability, attitudes, confidence, ownership and getting involved.

Isak Densen

the cure for anything is salt water. sweat, tears, or the ocean. -isak dinesen

I bloody love cycling, but I CRASHED MY BIKE IN 2012, I cycled into the back of a taxi, so I guess I have to take some responsibility  I was fine, but the bike died... I later discovered this http://bicycletaxidermy.com/  Get your bike handlebars mounted like a Moose's Head

CHECK OUT THIS MAN's CV http://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/gallery/paulo-estriga-infographic-cv/

Going for a Summer Swim in Hampstead Heath Ponds

DOING DUNWICH DYNAMO / ST CRISPIN's DAY/NIGHT RIDE

DCIM100GOPRO

cycling 120 miles overnight is one of the best things you can do

Graham Linehan and Armando Ianucci on comedy writing - http://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/richard_herring_lst_podcast/episode_9_iannucci_linehan/ …

Solid Tumblr which proves that Dads really are the original hipsters - http://dadsaretheoriginalhipster.tumblr.com/ 

YouTube comments of the year

'I just started my own colony of Dermestid beatles. I have about 100 they are working their way through a pigeon skeleton at the moment x)'

'I'm all about King of Spain. it reminds me of a dude riding the fuck out of his horse as fast as he can to go stop a marriage or something'

Also used http://airbnb.co.uk/ for the first time and it was wicked. £25 for my own converted stable apartment. And they let me use their hammock... Definitely worth checking out if you want somewhere to stay, about 1000% better than a hotel

I wrote a letter to the Leveson Inquiry

LEVESON

SOCIAL MEDIA - Follow my ramblings here http://twitter.com/thomhoffman

@thomhoffman: WEBSITE IDEA: Trombolar - dating website for people who have played the trombone

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@thomhoffman: 'I took the map less printed out, and that has made all the difference'

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@thomhoffman: Lady on the bus reading 50 Shades of Grey. Myself & other members of the travel sickness community, find this an abuse of power

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@thomhoffman: Hipster cows should be scene and not herd

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@thomhoffman: DOUCHEBAG just autocorrected to SPICEBUSH, so I'll probably just use that now instead

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@thomhoffman: I'd be a pretty liberal parent, but I wouldn't let my kid eat that ham that's also a bear's face.

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@thomhoffman: How bad would a war have to get before they called up the people who do British Military Fitness?

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FACEBOOK PLEASE GIVE ME ONE CAKE PER PHOTOGRAPH YOU USE, TWO CAKES FOR A FILM. A CUSTARD CREAM FOR A PHOTO BY SOMEONE ELSE BUT OF ME

PLEASE COPY AND PASTE THIS STATUS OR MASH YOU FACE AGAINST YOUR KEYBOARD NOW TO STOP FACEBOOK OWNING YOUR FIRST BORN CHILD FOR NO CAKES IN RETURN.

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I don't know if it's a good or bad sign, but the neighbours did not seem surprised AT ALL to see me skateboarding down the road in my dressing gown whilst juggling three alarm clocks

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@thomhoffman: Magic FM is the least ambitious magic possible. If magic was a thing, it wouldn't be doing this

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@thomhoffman: working from home today. Door rings = saleswoman/Jehovahs' witness or something. 'Are your mum and dad home?' - 'Err not right now'. Me = 27

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@thomhoffman: Best/Worst lyric = 'you know I feel so dirty when they start talking cute. I wanna tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot'

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FILMS OF THE YEAR

The Artist / Argo / Searching for Sugarman / Moonrise Kingdom

GIGS OF THE YEAR

Darwin Deez / Friendly Fires / Ben Gibbard / Tallest Man on Earth

BOOKS OF THE YEAR

Happiness Hypothesis - Jonathan Haidt / Fermat's Last Theorem - Simon Singh / Everything Matters - Ron Currie JR / Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon / In the Blink of an Eye - Walter Murch / Boxer Beetle Ned Beaumann

BAND OF THE YEAR

Tough one, I'm not as 'down with the kids' as I used to be. I'm about as 'down with the kids', as a person who says 'down with the kids'. The album I've listened to the most this year came from like 2004, but I really got into 'Explosions in the Sky' This year. Such a cool band, who make everything sound EPIC.

This song is a beaut and a nice video

I've had an awesome year, hope you've had one too, thanks for spending some of it here. If you've got any highlights to spread please drop a comment.

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Thom

Culture Badger's to do list of London

London

This photo I took in the pouring rain sums up London for me

I had to work in Paris recently, it was stressful, but productive. I got the Eurostar back late Sunday night. On this train I met some Canadians and they ended up staying at my house for three days. It was lots of fun, a bit of a gamble on all of our parts I guess, but I'm trusting my judgement more these days.

It led me to the question

'what should I recommend to my new house guests to do in London'.

I love London, but I don't know that London. I don't know, for example, what train station to get off to go to Buckingham Palace [Yeah ok I have now looked it up, but the point stands].

I hypocritically always apply pressure to anyone I know who has been somewhere, or even done a geography GCSE, to give me advice on what I should do in when I go somewhere new.

Considering I've lived within a 20 mile radius of London for 24 of my 27 years, I should probably be able to offer someone an opinion on what they should do in my city.

Anyway. That's a long winded way of saying, I like London, here are the things to do that represent the London I like.

1] 'I need to get me some falafel' - Hoxton Beach falafel - it's not really a thing to do, it's some food; but this little stand pops up every day on Goodge Place in Goodge Street as well as various other locations across East London. If they gave monkeys access to this falafel in some kind of experiment, they would probably eat it constantly until they died. You can take that as a compliment. Hoxton Beach - please use this in your publicity materials, I will do this in exchange for free cauliflower in my next wrap.

2] 'I really want to eat a plate' - Ethiopian Food @ Queen of Sheba - Kentish Town - Probably Ethiopian food is better placed on a blog  about things to do in Addis Ababa. BUT one of the things I love about London is the whole, 'all bits of the world have some space here', thing. This place is great, food comes on a pancake, and you share it, and you get to eat your plate because it's a pancake.

Killer Whale in a Jar

3] 'I would like to adopt some platypi reproductive organs' - Grant Zoological Museum - They have a Killer Whale Foetus, and a collection of moles, in a jar. It's a beautiful little natural history museum, free entry, right in the heart of Euston. Slightly odd opening hours, but really worth a visit.

4] 'I've literally never seen anyone not on heroin in a bandstand' - Bandstand Busking - YES I'M BIASED, as I occasionally direct films for them, but I only got involved by attending first as a fan. I love music, but can't hack big gigs, standing at the back whilst people talk. nightmare. This is music the way it's supposed to be played, plus it's free and all the bands are great. Fall in love with this London.

5] 'I am a non-believer, but I wanna have me some church time' - Gig at the Union Chapel - Probably my favourite venue in London. They needed to pay for repairs to the roof, so started holding events there and it's grown into a massive thing. They do loads of amazing charity work, so it's really a cause worth supporting. I've seen Bombay Bicycle Club, Alessi's Ark, Stewart Lee, and Peter Serafinowicz all perform there. They also do free gigs called Daylight Music most Saturday lunchtimes from 12-2pm, always really interesting. They serve good value food upstairs in the bar area, and tea and coffee on Saturdays.

Erin K and Tash

Party Time - 'excellent'

6] 'I'd like to watch the new Herzhog, or attend a masked ball like the one in Labyrinth, and then watch Labyrinth' - Prince CharlesCinema - I got a membership here for around £10, massive bargain, it's a way to see films reasonably priced in London's Leicester Square. You don't need to be a member to go there. They do loads of great events, I recently went to Schwing Along with Wayne's World. It was cool, people dressed up like their favourite character, really nice silly fun. They also do cool documentaries and non-mainstream stuff.

7] 'I need to work off all the falafel I ate during point #1]' - Ride a bike around - best way to see London, if you wobble around on a Boris Bike like a drunk tourist then motorists usually give you a bit of room, so don't be too scared. If roads are not your friend then I'd advise cycling along Regent's Canal. You could do my 40 mile fun route if you are keen [as described in a previous post], otherwise cycle from Angel to East London, maybe stop for lunch at Broadway market that'd be nice!

Kookaburras Broing Out

8] 'Most Londoners have a mattress in the road as their garden' -Have a potter round Hampstead Heath. I live in London and only have a poorly tended window ledge to call an outdoor space. When I need to get into some greenery, I head to the Heath. There is a beautiful thing called a Pagoda, I don't know what that means, but it's insane. Golder's Hill Park is a park within Hampstead Heath. I like it there too, there's a little zoo. I went there and my ex girlfriend adopted me a kookaburra. One day I went to visit it, it was smashing a baby chick to death against a pole. Elton John never sang about that.

9] 'Gah I'm somereason in central London at night and I need another drink' - Player's piano bar, it's a bar where a guy sits and plays piano and everyone sings along, it's kind of weird and nuts, It's definitely not 'cool' but it's pretty fun.

10] 'I want to dance with somebody, I want to feel the heat with somebody, yes I wanna dance with somebody, with somebody who probably didn't know me before and likes old stuff' - London Swing Dance Society does great classes and sessions where you can do a bit of a class, learn some moves, then dance with people, maybe in front of a wicked swing band! No excuses, beginners class will leave you with enough moves to have a go. Good way to meet nice people and I will often make visitors come and have a go.

11] 'I want to be someone else for a bit' - Improv classes... I love a good improv session. Hoopla improv runs classes every Saturday, each has a different theme, but if you are interested in performance, writing, or just messing around it's a really good no pressure, fun place to do it.

12] 'I need a pint, that's not awful, in Camden' - This is getting an easier dilemma to solve, my best tips are the Black Heart [lovely], near the World's End [not for me]. And the recently opened Brew Dog is a great shout for Independent craft beers.

13] 'I want to see a play in a room the size of that board meeting where the new design of the USB drives were announced' - Pentameter's Theatre - I've seen three great plays out of three here, and the theatre only fits about 30, it's really ace, you could get a crepe from the little famous crepe place beforehand. You can grab a nice pint from the pub underneath and take it up to the play - Perfect.

14] 'I want to do a laugh' - Some of my friends did a stand up comedy course, at the The Comedy School in Camden and they got all good at it, so I've been to a lot of stand up shows across London. Best FREE open mic night in my humble opinion is The Cavendish Arms in Stockwell, nice audience, good MCing and smart set up.

15] 'I want to do a laugh and I don't mind paying' - always great acts, good mix of circuit pros, and exciting newbies! Hooting Broadway, in Tooting Broadway [see what they did there] [[See what I did there]].

16] 'Well I like music, and I like films... but which do I like best?' - See Hear Club. Great, special nights at the Roof Gardens in Dalston, a band plays a show, and they you nestle down and watch a film picked by the band. A really great way to spend a summer's evening out East. Curated by @AnikainLondon #ff

17] 'I LIKE OLD STUFF' Go and see something at Wilton's Music Hall - Europe's oldest working music hall, and an incredible venue, really magic, take a look at the listings and go and go and check it out, I've had some great nights here.

18] 'I like having a reason to drink all day' Day at Lords. Beautiful venue, you can go and watch a nice game of cricket, have a drink and a chat. It can be a bit pricey, but it is a whole days entertainment. My tips are to use 'LateGate' where you can go after tea, for a few good hours cricket for around £10. Also if a test goes to a fifth day, you can sometime get cheaper tickets. Even if you don't like cricket, this is the place to grow to love it. Follow @HomeOfCricket for details on ticket price and whatnot.

I have probably left some things I like out, please feel free to add your own, I love to hear about cool stuff going down.

London's alright isn't it!

@thomhoffman

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