Posted on: February 28th, 2011 by riddaway
Clifford Slapper is the pianist-in-residence at the uber cool and exclusive Crazy Bear club in Covent Garden. Jean Paul Aubin Parvu talks to Clifford about music, Miss Right and why he’s a Slapper by name - not nature
CGJ: Is Clifford Slapper your stage name?CS: No, it’s actually my real name, despite what people often assume. The only worrying part is that one or two people who have got to know me quite well have assumed all along that it was a nickname – in which case how on earth did they think I would have earned such a moniker? I am a Slapper by name, not by nature.
Did you always dream of becoming a professional musician?As a young child my parents bought me a little toy piano, and apparently I was never off it, so they looked up a local piano teacher, an eccentric old lady in Wembley called Miss Beryl Silley. I had weekly lessons from the age of seven until just after I passed Grade 8 of the RSM exams, when Miss Silley sadly died. Silley and Slapper, what a combination! Years later I formed a musical duo with a young Lancaster woman called Chira Lovat, so then we were Slapper & Lovat – we resisted the temptation to re-spell that.
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Posted on: February 10th, 2011 by riddaway
Skateboarding fosters artistic creativity to an extent rarely matched by other sports and outdoor pursuits. Shannon Denny meets artist, skater and Slam City collaborator Arran Gregory to find out why
“Any skateboarder ends up being drawn to London like a magnet,” says Arran Gregory. Where you or I might see concrete seating, a handrail and a staircase, a skater sees infinite possibilities. A bench forms the basis for a trick, a rail becomes a surface to slide on and steps offer a whole new way of envisaging and navigating space.
“Skateboarding’s a really good way of mapping out a city,” he says. “We have alternate routes that we take. There’s a route that shoppers have in their heads of London, there’s a tourist route, and then there’s skateboarders. Our route takes us to really random places and backstreets. We’ve got this weird map in our heads.”
For going on 25 years, that map has included Slam City Skates. The cobbles and crowds make skating in Covent Garden impossible, but kids in sneakers carrying boards bearing four wheels have been beating a track here since the mid-Eighties.
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Posted on: January 5th, 2011 by riddaway
Caroline Roddis explores the boozy history of Covent Garden’s drinking culture
Tales of drunkards rampaging through London after marathon drinking sessions may be presented as marks of modern society’s degeneration but have, in fact, been told since Covent Garden began to develop into what we know and love today. Wild, faddish and occasionally surprising, the area’s evolving drinking culture has kept it on the map – and occasionally in the gutter – for over 500 years.
Granted to the Dukes of Bedford following the Reformation, Covent Garden was already well lubricated by the time of the 1552 Alehouse Act (the first licensing law). One of the area’s oldest recorded pubs was the Swan near Charing Cross, established in the 15th century. This pub, incidentally, was favoured by poet Ben Johnson as its barman Ralph always served him good ‘Canary’ – a sweet wine from the Canary Islands.
The abundance of alehouses, which have been a feature of English life since Roman times, was to be expected given that in 1584 there were 26 breweries in London, producing a whopping 648,900 barrels between them. Beer was, in fact, a much safer drink than the untreated water available and had experienced a surge in popularity thanks to the hopping technique introduced from Holland. Not only were half London’s brewers foreign but, as Pepys informs us, there was also a French tavern, Chatelaine’s, in Covent Garden.
One surviving pub from this era is the Lamb & Flag on Rose Street, which has records dating back to 1623 and whose back room gained notoriety as ‘the Bucket of Blood’ during the 17th century due to the bare knuckle boxing matches held there. Indeed, entertainment has always been an important accompaniment to drinking in Covent Garden and sports like boxing, bowling and even shooting have all taken place in pubs across the area. Moreover, it was not unusual for former sportsmen to become publicans in later life: boxer Ben Caunt, after whom Big Ben was supposedly named, ran the Coach & Horses on St Martin’s lane for a few years until 1851, when a fire tragically destroyed both the pub and the lives of his two children.
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Posted on: December 10th, 2010 by riddaway
Viel Richardson meets Peter Gordon, the culinary genius behind Kopapa – the new restaurant that brings the many flavours of the world to Seven Dials then fuses them together, with exquisite results
“I pass through the Seven Dials area all the time and have always thought that it had a really special atmosphere,” says Michael McGrath, co-owner and manager of Kopapa – a new restaurant about to open on Monmouth Street. “It is very hard to put an exact description on it. With the trees and the roundabout it feels to me a little bit French. It also has with a really good collection of restaurants and shops. I have always felt the area is really special. In my mind it has its own identity.”
That good collection of restaurants will, as of this winter, have a very special addition to its ranks. With Michael taking care of things front of house, the culinary force behind the new restaurant is his partner Peter Gordon. Born in New Zealand, Peter has long been established as the chef who raised fusion food from a reputation he once likened to that of reality TV to a recognised style of cuisine found on the high end menus of hotels and restaurants around the world. It is Peter’s singular take on global cuisine that will take centre stage at Kopapa.
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Posted on: November 30th, 2010 by riddaway
Amy Laughinghouse cuts some old fashioned rug at The Waldorf Hilton’s tango tea
A silver-haired bandleader in a white coat and black bow tie croons into a microphone as women in towering heels and men in wingtips whirl across a marble dance floor. Other elegantly attired couples are clustered around gold linen-draped tables, sipping bubbly from champagne flutes or nibbling on finger sandwiches and delicate pastries, furtively checking their reflections in mirrored alcoves framed by ornate plaster columns.
It could be a scene from Mad Men, but in fact, it’s a 21st Century Tango Tea, one of the most original and popular takes on London’s irrepressible tea culture. This event—held every two months at The Waldorf Hilton hotel, an Edwardian grande dame near the thriving theater district—offers a hearty side of ballroom and Latin dancing along with the obligatory tea and scones.
While I love to dance, my limited moves, honed to the likes of Wham! and Modern English, don’t exactly translate to the foxtrot and the cha-cha. And although my husband Scott is perfectly competent in the side-to-side shuffle, he hasn’t attempted anything more ambitious since my parents, who misguidedly envisioned us waltzing at our wedding reception, arranged a lesson for the morning after his stag do. With Scott’s head still spinning one way and his feet attempting to spin the other, it was not what you would call a resounding success. (In the end, we cut the rug as a newly married couple by swaying spasmodically to More Than Words, a power-ballad by the 90s hair band Extreme, much to my parents’ everlasting disappointment).
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