The Seb & Fiona Blog

‘Helium The World, make it a better place, for you and for me and the entire kazoo-niverse’

‘No socks please - we’re British!’

‘If kazoo want my body, and you think i’m socksy’

‘Rob Da Bank with a man with a bottle of whisky next to him’

‘How much for the tree?’

‘Gah - running out of time - something about socks and sacrilege’

‘…really running out of time now’

‘…Seb, can you finish these off?’

More info here

… Seb and Fiona are knee deep in Spitalfields Christmas prep…

29 November 2007 6pm - 9pm
Old Spitalfields Market, E1
FREE

***An alternative Christmas service by Bestival favourites Lost & Found and Big Love, with singing, dancing, performance, games, mulled wine, a surprise celebrity visit, a “Sympathetic Reverend” called Duncan Pritchard and a Helium Choir***

On Thursday 29th November Old Spitalfields Market launches “A Merry Different Christmas”, a celebration of doing Christmas differently, avoiding sports socks, kipper ties, lumps of coal and Netto gift vouchers, and of actually having fun while you work out what might be right for Auntie Beryl.

Bestival favourites Lost & Found and Big Love will be leading an alternative Christmas service and all are very welcome. Helium Choir will be singing high-octave versions of classic festive songs including Christmas single ‘Little Drummer Boy’ (as heard on BBC Radio 1). Lillywhitesass will present something entirely new from their world of kaleidoscopic burlesque. And the Reverend Duncan Pritchard, in a rare trip away from his Big Love Inflatable Church will sermonise on the subject of bad gifts and other yuletide let-downs.

A visit from a very special celebrity guest (turning on our eco-friendly single Christmas light), a jolly good xmas disco and an Alternative Christmas Confession Booth will all be on the agenda in this night of singing, dancing, performance games and mulled wine.

It’s all in the Spitalfields tradition of Christmas events that avoid the usual C-list boy bands flicking a big boring switch and instead offer a marvellous night out for friends and families alike. Last year saw infamous local landlady Sandra Esquilant turn on a ‘Jingle Punk Rock Christmas Glade’ to the sound of surf Christmas covers and crooning, while the previous year saw Gilbert & George arrive aloft a horse and carriage to illuminate a tree made from scaffolding (later declared as one of London’s five best Xmas trees by the Evening Standard).

Old Spitalfields Market is London’s unrivalled best place to shop for original gifts, special somethings that will be loved and cherished for years to come. Shoppers who come to Old Spitalfields Market will be supporting small shops and independent market traders, selling products they have personally chosen and often even designed themselves. Boho jewellery, unusual chairs, gourmet teas, vintage vases, Moroccan teapots, leather handbags, maximalist kitsch, pocket gardens and old-fashioned wooden toys are amongst the many amazing presents on offer, making Spitalfields surely the *only place to get away from the High Street this Christmas.

The shops, restaurants and businesses of Old Spitalfields Market are open 7 days a week, while the market is open on the following days:

Thu: Antiques & vintage
Fri: Fashion & art
Sun: Busiest day

Opening Times are as follows:
Market Stalls: Monday to Friday, 10am - 4pm and Sundays, 9am - 5pm
Restaurants: Times vary but in general Monday to Friday, 11am - 11pm and Sundays 9am - 5pm
Shops: Times vary but in general Monday to Sunday 11am-7pm

Old Spitalfields Market is 2 mins walk from Liverpool Street Station and 10 mins from Aldgate East

www.oldspitalfieldsmarket.com

The buildings that house Old Spitalfields Market were created 120 years ago. Today they are the subject of major refurbishment works which aim to alleviate the effects of over a century of wear and tear.

This means that until autumn the usual markets on Thursdays (Antiques), Fridays (Fashion and Art) and Sundays (the really big market) will be relocated to a temporary home around the corner on Lamb Street by Carluccios. The Record and Books market on Thursdays will also merge with next door’s for a little while.

Here’s Dana and Retro Man (holding a very tiny camera!). They are regular Old Spitalfields Market traders who are selling their goodies in the new part of the market in the inerim period.

If you’ve been missing Square Pie, Cafe Med and the International Food Village - don’t worry. They’ll be back in a few months too.

More information about the works, completion date and forthcoming Old Spitalfields Market happenings will be hosted on oldspitalfieldsmarket.com shortly.

And finally, for those interested in seeing how it’s all going on the ground here’s a sneak view out of the back window.

Fi

You can’t really miss Gilbert and George. Suited, booted and wearing an expresssion of snobbish disdain, the quintessential odd couple of British art seemed very much the living sculptures as they browsed the birthday cards in the newsagents this morning. If making your own cards is your prerequisite for being an artist, your be pleased to know G&G comply,leaving empty handed.

My morning jaunt for papers and milk continued like an artistic episode of Stella Street. I spotted Tracey Emin in true Heat magazine style leaving her hairdressers, a mere paint’s flick away from her senior creative compatriots.I don’t want to use the phrase “only in London”, or indeed “only in Spitalfields”, but spotting two (G&G count as one) of the world’s most notorious artists within twenty feet of each other at 10.30 on a Tuesday morning probably wouldn’t happen anywhere else. So, if you’re bored, thirsty or ill informed on contemporary events, go buy some milk and a paper spot yourself a celebrity artist. Oh, and get me a Lion bar while you’re at it.

Andrew (the latest addition to Seb & Fiona)

Seb and I went out for a chat with the Spitalfields Marketing Group a few weeks back. By the end of the night and to be fair after a few Guinesses (Seb) and a little white wine (me) we’d somehow signed up to selling pies at Glastonbury.

Here we are after our mammoth 27 hours of shifts selling literally thousands of Square Pies. We’re waiting in the 3 hour queue to get off site on the Monday morning with our friend Sammy.

What Glastonbury started in 1970 many festivals have tried to emulate since. The End Of the Road Festival came to our attention last week as a real champ of an indie festival. Winner of the Best New Festival award the line up includes Midlake, Super Furries, Yo La Tengo, Lambchop and loads more. We’re doing the PR for this one, so hopefully the shifts won’t be quite so gruelling.

Fi

At approximately 3pm yesterday, workers at a building on Brushfield St were evacuated following an unscheduled fire alarm. The fire service arrived minutes later and their investigation confirmed that an oversensitive smoke alarm had in fact been triggered by two crumpets in a toaster. At the time of writing Seb & Fiona were not available to comment on the crumpets’ ownership.

Turkish Delight, ‘full of Eastern Promise’ or so the ad man told us - those fluttering lashes and sweeping sand dunes. I never bought into it. Can’t bear the stuff. Neither, it seems, can Seb. There are six pieces of the hideous chocolate sitting mournfully on the desk. However, the confectionery does bring me on nicely to East, the prelude of which was last night. It’s a festival which is ‘championing the best of East London’, and it runs from 1-6 March.

The event opens on Thursday 1st March with an hour-long peal of bells at St Paul’s, followed by bell-ringing at loads of other East London churches, including Hawksmoor’s Christ Church in Spitalfields.

There’s also a two day food festival called Taste East taking place on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd March in the new development next to Old Spitalfields Market. The festival will tell the hisory of East End through food, and some highlights include Bollywood Brass Band, a Hawksmoor cocktail bar and talks and demonstrations by people like John from Tea Smith who will tell the story of tea.

You can read more about it here.

Fi

Bishosgate, yesterday. Was Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure more prophetic than we initially thought? Ah, the obliviousness of London passers by. Preoccupied, perhaps, with fears for 24, whose new series has been a bit rubbish so far and has seen too many goatee beards in positions of power. Sort it out, Joel Surnow (please).

Seb

On Cheshire St, down past the vintage clothes shops, the semi-existent shoe shop (plimsoles are £5. £5!) and the legendary bacon and egg sandwiches at Yummy’s, there’s a shadowy door underneath a bright white ‘HOTEL’ sign. Press the buzzer and sign a disclaimer and you are granted access to an enormous art installation by Christoph Büchel.

It starts as a creepy echo of a failing budget hotel then quickly turns into something else - something that involves treading your way through corridors stuffed with single mattresses, crawling through small holes, looking at dirty toys in bin-liners and porn on shipping container walls, navigating your way through filthy mazes of fridges and old computers and feeling like you’re trespassing the intimate lives of the big, cramped many who the world has pretty much forgetten about. Afterwards, our lines blurred, we wandered into a large, functioning linen warehouse next door, suspecting that it was all still part of the exhibition (it wasn’t). Here are some pictures taken on my phone - just click them to enlarge.

Simply Botiful is the name of the exhibition, and it has something in common with Punchdrunk’s amazing production of Faust, presently occupying all five floors of a condemned building in Wapping. In both pieces, the audience is given free reign to wander at will, experiencing it on their own terms, but being subtly manipulated as well.

More about Simply Botiful here and more about Faust here.

Seb