This Valentine weekend, food charity FareShare are collaborating with Forgotten Feast and their eco-chef Tom Hunt to produce a unique 3 course banqueting experience – Valentines for Everyone.

For £40 you can expect a magnificent 3-course menu of delicious but unwanted foods that might otherwise end up in landfill. From heart to honey, pheasant to parsnip and even kaffir lime leaves, Valentines for Everyone will transform surplus food into a bountiful seasonal banquet. Surplus food is delicious, healthy produce that hasn’t made it into the shops because too much was ordered, it’s in the wrong packaging or it’s just a bit wonky. Be prepared for a culinary exploration, we will cater for vegetarian and red-blooded carnivores alike.

Everyone will sit together for the feast, so come alone, with friends or with your loved one and sit with other diners to celebrate and feast. The banquet will be held in FareShare’s east London warehouse, so diners will sit amongst towering stacks of FareShare’s surplus food, industrial fridges and lavish themed décor, created by Secret Garden Party designer Alex Geldenhuis.

Every ticket sold will enable FareShare to provide an additional 80 meals for the hungry and vulnerable people they support, thanks to grant-giving charity StreetSmart who are generously matching the number of meals raised though ticket sales. FareShare rescues surplus food year round and delivers it to local charities all over the country.

Tickets are available for dinner Friday 10th February, Saturday 11th, Sunday 12th (late lunch) and for dinner on Valentine’s Day itself and include 3 courses, a drink and canapés.

For dinner service, the venue will be open from 7pm and service will commence promptly at 7.30 pm.
Late lunch on Sunday 12th the venue will be open from 3pm for service at 3.30pm.

For more information, visit the Valentines For Everyone event pages.

The End Child Poverty campaign has produced a report that shows many parts of London to be among the poorest int he country. Its list of the 20 UK local authorities containing the highest percentages of children in poverty contains eleven of the capital’s 32 boroughs, with Tower Hamlets topping the list on 52%. Islington, Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham and Barking and Dagenham are up there too. The massive gap between the capital’s richest and poorest is illuminated by the Eng Child Poverty Campaign report.

It is also well illustrated on the excellent website ‘London’s Poverty Profile’.

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Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Performing the city: mobility, space and subjectivity.

7th December 2011, setting out from Look Mum No Hands in Old Street, 10.30am

Call for Contributions/Participants: Deadline 4th November 2011

Cities are shaped by, and give shape to, the movement of people, technologies, things and ideas. They are composed of dynamic entanglements of humans and non-humans, (re)produced and contested on a daily basis. To make sense of mobile urban life demands an understanding of a myriad of actors who perform aspects of everyday life. Building upon the work of University of East London’s Sustainable Mobilities Research Group, this workshop seeks to examine and enliven some of these entanglements through a mobile symposium.

The event will take place in London on Wednesday 7th December, setting out from Look Mum No Hands in Old Street at 10.30am and returning there for lunch. The tentative format of the day is to have two excursions (one am, one pm) into different parts of London; of course the journeys will be just as important – if not more so – than the destinations.

The day will be very informal, and whilst it will be Œfacilitated¹ by us (Rachel Aldred, Katrina Jungnickel and Justin Spinney) we are looking for participants to talk/walk through themes central to their work, whether at a particular location or whilst on the move (for those less familiar with London we are happy to suggest locations). Speakers will be asked to talk for no more than 15 minutes and are encouraged to include objects/materials/places and of course movement.

We are keeping themes purposely broad at this stage but are particularly keen on talks/tours which engage with the following themes: the politics of (im)mobility; mobility and temporality; the sensory, affective and (im)material; (in)visible mobilities (particularly in relation to the Œwarping¹ of the city); rhythm; citizenship and urban governance; the construction and displacement of subjectivities through mobility; place, infrastructure and the scripting of movement. Submissions are welcome from areas including (but not limited to) geography, sociology, architecture, history and anthropology. We are particularly keen to attract postgraduate and early career researchers but all are of course welcome! There will be no power point facilities, but there will be plenty of time for discussion and networking.

The event is free to attend, morning coffee/tea/pastries and lunch are provided, travel expenses around London will be reimbursed for all attending, and we can cover speaker travel costs up to £50.

If you would like to contribute a talk/tour please submit a positioning statement (max 500 words) about your research/ proposed talk/ tour/ destination/ mode of movement by Friday 4th November to k.e.jungnickel@uel.ac.uk or j.spinney@uel.ac.uk. We will then put the final programme together and notify speakers by Friday 11th November. If you would like to come along without contributing a talk please contact Katrina or Justin, but please note that as places are limited to 25 in total they will be allocated on a first come first served basis. This workshop is supported by the ESRC Cycling Cultures Project.

Blast from the Past

RAI’s Education Outreach Programme

Call for Contributions: Deadline 16th November 2011

In anticipation of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, the RAI’s Education Outreach Programme is running an oral histories project called Blast from the Past. The aim of the project is to connect people around the world through material objects related to sports, games and play. We are asking people to dig through their attics, family trunks and wardrobes to find objects (sport kits, souvenirs, photos, medals or magazines) that capture special memories related to sport, games and play. Send us a video of you speaking about your object or write a story and send us a photo!

Who can participate?  Anyone interested in anthropology, history and sport

How do I submit my story? Send us a photo of your object with a description of max 100 words. Alternatively, send us a short video clip, max 1:30 sec.

Further details HERE.

Behind the Riots Guardian sociology series

Reading the Riots Guardian, LSE, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Open Society Foundations series

Paul Gilroy on the riots

Important video on the riots in Tottenham:

A new angle on the London Underground - Creating a tube map for the 21st century

We welcome your views and ideas about this map and your experiences of using the London Underground system. You can contribute via our website which has links to the blog, twitter and facebook. Our aim is to create a dynamic map that responds to the needs of the user, makes best use of technology, and reflects the way we live our lives in the 21st Century.

For more information please contact: info@london-tubemap.com Map designed by Mark Noad (www.therightidea.co.uk)

The original London Underground diagram, designed by Harry Beck is one of the greatest designs of the twentieth century. He rationalised and clarified a complex system to produce a simple, easy to follow piece of information graphics. The principles he established for the diagram are still in use today.

However, in 1931 when it was first used, there were only seven lines so the compromises Beck made on geographical accuracy did not matter greatly. Today, with the constant development of the diagram now accommodating twice as many lines, these inaccuracies are more of a problem. Indeed, they form the basis for a major criticism of the diagram, that it bears little or no relation to London at street level.

This is particularly the case with newer lines especially London Overground which has been shoe-horned in leaving stations nowhere near their neighbours, for example: Watford and Watford Junction; Archway and Upper Holloway; Seven Sisters and South Tottenham; South Acton and Chiswick Park.

The map illustrated here is an attempt to see if it is possible to create a geographically-accurate representation of the underground system while still retaining some of the clarity of Beck’s original diagram. It uses similar principles, fixed line angles – in this case 30 and 60 degrees instead of 45 – and shortens the extremities of the lines to make it more compact.

Making the position of the stations the most important element of the design means there is less space for the station names. To allow for this, a new condensed typeface has been created – New Underground Condensed – which is based on Edward Johnston’s original font.

This map will help visitors to London navigate the city more efficiently. It will make it easier to decide which route to take including whether it is quicker to walk between stations. As the project develops, we will add more information to help users of the underground system which will be accessible on-line, in print, and via the app.

Brian Haw, the peace campaigner who had been camped in Parliament Square since 2001 in protest at Britain’s needless bombardment and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, died over the weekend.

You can read a press release from his family on his website here.

Brian had been in Parliament Square for ten years, a constant reminder of our govenrment’s crimes abroad and at home. His peaceful protest was the subject of constant shameless attempts to discourage, repress, harass, intimidate and legistate against him – all of them failed.

Watch the clip that film maker Chris Atkins uploaded onto youtube in tribute to Brian, and if you can watch the whole of the film that its from – Taking Liberties, a brilliant account of New Labour’s attack on our civil liberties.

The Guardian and Tate are also flogging a book of the series.

Badaude has a great blog with some wonderful observations and drawings of London, Paris and issues in between.

Did anyone out there actually get any tickets to the Olympics?

I applied in April for a very modest number of tickets to the first round of the women’s shot put on a monday morning thinking that I might have a chance of actually getting the tickets. After going through the bizarre application process I felt confident that me and my family would be going to see something of the olympics that we are all going to spend the rest of our lives paying for. Today on the 17th of June, I received an e-mail (below) informing me that I had not been successful with my application to the games.

Dear Benjamin,

Your Olympic Games ticket application.

We would like to thank you for applying for London 2012 Olympic Games tickets. Due to the overwhelming demand for tickets, we are sorry that you have not been allocated the tickets you requested. We can confirm that we have not taken any payment from you. Demand for tickets greatly exceeded supply in the sessions and price categories you applied for. Where sessions were oversubscribed, we undertook a random ballot to allocate tickets in the fairest possible way. We had applications for more than 20 million tickets, seeing huge demand across many sports. Two-thirds of all price categories were oversubscribed and went to ballot. Exclusive opportunity We would like to invite you to take advantage of an exclusive opportunity to purchase some of the remaining tickets, in advance of those customers who were allocated tickets in the initial application phase. From 6am on 24 June until 6pm on 3 July 2011 you will be able to request some of the remaining tickets on the London 2012 ticketing website These tickets will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. They cover a great range of Olympic sports including Athletics, Basketball, Football, Handball, Hockey and Volleyball. Download the full list of available sports During this second chance sales window you will only be able to submit one application, and you will be able to apply for a maximum of three sessions. Once you submit, you will receive an email confirming your application. We will then advise you which tickets you have been allocated within 24-48 hours, subject to successful payment. All payments will be taken between 4 and 7 July 2011. We very much hope you will take advantage of this exclusive ticket offer so you can still be a part of the greatest show on earth. If you have any questions regarding your Olympic Games ticket application, please visit our Frequently asked questions Thomas Cook Games Breaks As the official provider of short breaks to the Games, Thomas Cook still have a limited number of Games Breaks available. Thomas Cook Games Breaks start at £99 per person and include official tickets, accommodation in London hotels and a range of other services. Find out more on the Thomas Cook website Best wishes The London 2012 Ticketing team Be aware Please be vigilant if attempting to purchase London 2012 tickets from sources other than www.tickets.london2012.com and ensure you are buying from an authorised outlet. A full list of authorised ticket resellers is available here

Boris Johnson is ‘slightly cheesed off’ about not getting his own tickets – will he be watching it on TV?

Call for Entries

FRAMING THE CITY is a juried photography competition accompanying a major international conference hosted by CRESC at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester from the 6th – 9th September 2011.

First and second prizes will be awarded to those photographs judged to best capture the conference theme: FRAMING THE CITY. Entrants are invited to examine the nature of change in the urban environment; to reflect on and challenge notions of city living from the local to the global and across cultural, technical and political landscapes.

The CRESC Framing the City conference aims to scrutinise the processes by which cities are conceptualised, realised, lived and contested. All shortlisted entrants will be part of an online competition gallery on flickr, hosted as part of the conference proceedings.

The winning entrants will:

· have their work published in the prestigious online magazine Manchester Review

· have their work featured on the CRESC FRAMING THE CITY conference brochure (1st prize, front cover; 2nd prize, back cover)

· receive a collectors’ item hardback copy of the work of photographer Stephen Gill

· receive a cash prize (1st prize £100; 2nd prize £50)

· have their work displayed at the Royal Northern College of Music during the conference

· attend a prize giving at the conference opening ceremony on 6th September

Deadline for entries: Thursday 30 June 2011

There is a limit of 3 entries per person, but prizes will be awarded to single photographs not to a collection of work and entrants must agree to the ‘Creative Commons Licence’ conditions of flickr.

To enter please click here