Courtesan Dim Sum Bar

Ahead of Valentine's Day this year, Brixton Blog ran a competition to win a meal for two at Courtesan. Being familiar with the delicious dim sum served here I of course had to enter the competition, and crossed my fingers for the win. Regrettably, I wasn't the lucky one. However, I was delighted to receive the 'consolation prize' of a 20% off coupon to be used at the restaurant.

I went today with a couple of friends - which really is an ideal size group because many of the dim sum are served in portions of three. Knowing that we had a whopping great discount to play with we ordered a rather large spread of food:

Stormy Seaweed

Deep Fried Squid

Wagyu & Ribeye Slider

A selection of dim sum on my plate, clockwise from top: King Prawn & Wasabi (steamed); Char Siu Bun; Prawn & Crab (steamed)

A couple of the dishes I'd tried before: King Prawn & Wasabi is one of my favourites - it includes whole prawn and a sharp burst of wasabi. I love the contrast of textures between the very meaty prawn and the delicate, gelatinous casing of the dim sum. The Char Siu I'd also eaten before - I find the sweetness of the bun and its sticky texture just irresistible.

The Prawn & Crab dim sum were very nice, although I struggled to detect much crab as the prawn flavour was quite overpowering. I had been very excited to try the Wagyu & Ribeye slider, a new addition to the menu. It's an innovative use of the dough used in a Char Siu Bun: here it is used to encase a mini burger. We ordered two plates of these (four sliders in total) and were very impressed with the size - I'd expected them to be much smaller. They were delicious - the tender, juicy meat providing a savoury centre for the two sweet buns. In all honesty, this could possibly be just as good with 100% ribeye, which is one of my favourite cuts of beef anyway - I'm not sure how much difference the wagyu made when mixed and cooked with another cut of beef. I would be interested to know what proportion of the meat was in fact wagyu. Regardless, I love the innovative approach that Courtesan take in dishes such as this.

The sides were also delicious - I love that rubbery texture that seaweed has when served fresh, and its delicate taste of the sea. The fried calamari with spicy dip was also perfectly decent.

I think one of my favourite things about Courtesan is that not only are the flavours most of the time absolutely spot on (and often a little bit adventurous), but the textures of the dishes are almost a feature in and of themselves. I know that in China the 'mouth feel' of dishes is really important - but I've not often experienced this delight in textures within Chinese food in England apart from at this restaurant.

Courtesan is definitely a favourite of mine - not only is the food great, but the atmosphere is very relaxed, and the decor although quite striking, is not distracting. And if I needed any more reasons to love this place, I've been told that the owner grew up on the road I live on, which is a nice little connection.

I will no doubt be returning soon. As Courtesan have quite a large selection of wheat-free dishes on the menu I think this may be the restaurant of choice on Mother's Day for my wheat-intolerant Mama!

The meal for three with soft drinks came to around £43, inclusive of 20% discount and service charge.

Courtesan

69-73 Atlantic Road

Brixton

London

SW9 8PU

Tel: 0208 127 8677

KERB

Street food is all the rage at the moment, with food trucks having popped up here there and just about everywhere across London over the past year or so. The fast and on-the-go nature of street food definitely appeals to me... in a lot of countries it is pretty normal to be able to grab some fantastic and interesting quick meals on the streets - I'm thinking of India, Mexico etc. So I like the fact that a similar movement seems to be happening here, giving people more interesting options for fast food than a Pret sandwich or McDonald's burger.

KERB (formerly Eat Street), which can be found in the 'no-man's-land' of King's Boulevard, situated between King's Cross Station and University of the Arts London's new campus, is a place I've frequented for a while, and where I've been able to try a number of foods from these new up-and-coming street food traders. The market trades during the working week, and there's always a selection of five or so different stalls cooking a whole variety of different things. KERB have quite a large roster of traders, so it's always easy to try something you've not had before.

The stalls I've tried include:

Kooky Bakes
Bleecker St. Burger
Mother Flipper
Tongue 'N Cheek
Banh Mi 11
Big Apple Hot Dogs (well, I visited them at another location, but they do trade at KERB)

The two I would most highly recommend are Kooky Bakes and Big Apple Hot Dogs. If you've got a sweet tooth you will think you have died and gone to heaven when you approach the Kooky Bakes stall, piled high with (very generously sized) whoopie pies, slices and cupcakes. I inevitably come away from this stall with at least two tasty items; my favourites include their signature slice and malteser whoopie pie. Big Apple Hot Dogs quite simply make the best hotdog I have ever eaten - The Big Frank. The flavours, textures, everything about it is just perfect. They use free range pork and prime beef, so you're not only getting a tasty dog but also a very high quality one which, in the days of horsemeatgate is always good to know.

The central location of KERB is great because it means you can visit these traders during the working week, without having to trek to markets on the weekend that perhaps aren't anywhere near where you live (like Brockley or Netil markets for example). If you work nearby I definitely recommend checking it out. I actually don't work nearby but I still try to make it out there when I can because it is so great having all these different traders in one place. There's always something that will catch your eye and tickle your tastebuds. The combination of different mouth-watering scents coming from each stall often makes it difficult to decide what to choose.

I last visited KERB a couple of days ago, and decided to opt for a stall I had visited before - Bleecker St. Burger.

I had previously had the Blue Burger with sweet potato fries and really enjoyed it. I thought it tasted like a really good home-made burger, which I mean in a good way. This time I chose the regular cheeseburger instead, and as I wasn't completely ravenous I didn't order fries.

Sadly, this time the burger didn't live up to expectations. They state that the burgers are served medium rare unless otherwise requested, but my burger unfortunately was just about medium in the centre and pretty much well done around the outside, which is not at all how I like my burgers. I also found the bun too sweet and the meat/sauces too salty, so the two elements were battling for attention on my palate rather than complimenting each other. I also didn't like - and I know this is a very slight niggle - the fact that it was served in a rather large polystyrene box. It really didn't need it. Last time it was just wrapped in some foil which worked fine - and less packaging is better for the environment. It's a shame that my second experience of their burgers was so different to my first. I ended up getting food envy and wishing I'd got a free range chicken burger from Spit and Roast instead. Oh well - there's always next time!

Sorry to end the review on a slightly bum note, but overall I think KERB is great and definitely worth a visit if you like your food.

Random International: Rain Room at Barbican

After spending the last few months mocking people for queueing to see some rain in England, I finally gave in yesterday and did the same thing myself. After all I love a good meteorological installation (did I mention how much I liked The Weather Project?) so I knew I couldn't miss the Rain Room.

As always I used my 'arrive first thing on a Friday' tactic but sadly that was in vain this time. I arrived at 10.45am, before the installation even opens, and the queue was already huge. The place in the queue at which I started was soon revealed with a large sign to be the 'approximately 4 hours from this point' area. Happily this proved to be a bit of an over estimate as I fairly swiftly surpassed the subsequent '2 hours from this point' sign. After about 2 hours of alternatively sitting, standing, reading, listening to podcasts, getting bored and slowly losing the will to live I asked my queue neighbours to please kindly save my spot so that I could go to Costa and buy a coffee to revive me. When I returned with my mocha I was reenergized, and I realised I was on the home straight - nearly there! 

At about quarter past one I finally entered The Curve, after a gallery assistant warning me that I was most likely to get wet as I was wearing dark clothing. Well really, if you come to something called the Rain Room and you don't want to get wet, you've come to the wrong place.

You enter a darkened space, you hear the rain splashing, rebounding off the floor, feel the moisture in the air - before eventually coming across a distinct area where the rain is, very precisely and directionally, coming down. It sometimes falls on you, but it mostly neatly surrounds you.

It is quite a stunning installation - immersive, obviously, but also interactive - the installation responds to your movements and sounds, so that it constantly changes and adapts in accordance to what you are doing. I liked the fact that what is essentially some very clever programming achieves the impression that you are controlling the rain. The forces of nature appear to have been harnessed in this room.

Visually the installation is also incredibly beautiful - it actually reminded me a bit of Olafur Elliason's Model for a Timeless Garden, currently at the Hayward's Light Show, in the way that it created a 'sculptural' installation using light, darkness and water.

I think the experience was definitely worth the wait - and I'm glad that they are restricting the number of people allowed in at any time, because it would completely ruin the experience if there were 50 people in there all at once.

If you haven't been yet, then I'm afraid you can expect queues longer than what I experienced when you go - next week is half term, and the following week is the last week of the installation, so it's bound to be busy. I'm not trying to put anyone off but go prepared - with some entertainment, food and drink to keep you going whilst you wait. Because wait you will. But hey, good things really do come to those who wait.

Random International: Rain Room
Barbican
4 October 2012 - 3 March 2013
Open Daily 11am - 8pm, Thu until 10pm
Last admission to the queue 3 hours before closing; on weekends 4 or 5 hours before closing
Free admission

Light Show at Hayward Gallery

I was excited to hear that there was going to be an exhibition focusing on light art at the Hayward this year. I worked on the UK’s largest light festival (yes, there is such a thing) in 2011, and it was without doubt the most interesting project I’ve worked on in my (admittedly short) career to date. So I was really looking forward to seeing an exhibition dedicated to artists working with the medium of light. My experience of light art previously had been primarily through the aforementioned outdoor festival, where many of the works were site-specific, and much of the magic came from art popping up in an unusual and unexpected public spaces around this beautiful city of Durham. This exhibition, in a traditional gallery setting, was bound to be quite a different experience.

The Hayward has made some quite interesting programming choices of late, such as this show – and I’m also thinking of last year’s Art of Change: New Directions from China. They’re throwing in some unexpected choices alongside the ‘big name’ shows they’ve had over the past few years, such as Tracey Emin: Love is What You Want. The Light Show is in some ways quite a daring choice. Light art is not something you see very much of in the big museums and galleries, aside from the odd Dan Flavin piece or Tracey Emin neon. But equally, it’s quite a populist artform I think. There’s something quite primitive about our enjoyment of light in and of itself – mimicking as it does the sun, essential to the existence of life on earth; and equally harking back to mankind’s discovery of fire, the production and control of light and heat. Having heard that the Light Show had been sold out the previous weekend, my initial feelings that this exhibition may appeal to people en mass seems to have been right. The title of the exhibition, also, I think is a clever bit of marketing to encourage a large and diverse audience: calling it a ‘show’ confers it with just the right level of casualness, making it seem like some sort of spectacular experience suitable for all the family.

Luckily, as I work part-time, I was able to go to the show on a Friday morning, thereby avoiding the weekend crowds and being able to buy a ticket without booking in advance. Nonetheless, The Hayward was busier than I’d ever seen it on a weekday. I usually go to the Hayward on a Friday, and have never had to queue to buy a ticket, and I’m usually one of very few people in the galleries. This time, I had a to queue for a little while to buy a ticket. That little while was actually longer than it should have been due to some pretty confusing signage in the foyer that led me and several other people to queue in the wrong place. Apparently the Cloakroom/Tickets desk doesn’t actually sell tickets – whoever produces the onsite signage at The Hayward apparently didn’t think this might be a bit misleading. Anyway, after watching various Hayward members smugly speed through in the fast lane I finally bought my ticket – and as I’m an Art Fund member it was only £5. With the standard ticket price being £11, that’s quite a bargain. I’m always glad to get a reduced price ticket, because when I pay over £10 entrance I feel a bit pressured to spend hours there to get my money’s worth if you see what I mean. At a fiver I feel like I can spend as much or little time in there as I want, and come back again at a later date if I want to, making for a more relaxed experience.

The first room starts with one of the most striking pieces in the exhibition – Cylinder II (2011) by Leo Villereal. That’s the piece they’ve been using as the lead image on all the promotional materials for the show, so you will probably already have been exposed to it in some way before visiting. Due to the dynamic nature of the work, any still image doesn’t do it justice. The piece is like a shimmering industrial chandelier – it’s made of mirror-finished stainless steel and 19,600 white LED lights. The piece is programmed to produce a constantly changing and never repeated series of patterns and shapes. It’s really beautiful, and I could have watched it for quite some time.

Cylinder II by Leo Villereal (2011)

However, the placement of David Batchelor’s Magic Hour (2004/7) in the same room was quite distracting, because at most angles I was constantly aware of the colourful lights shining elsewhere in the room. Because light changes a space so dramatically, I do find it quite problematic to have so many light works sharing rooms together in the exhibition. However, it is a gallery space so I understand that this is a necessary evil, unless they dramatically reduce the number of pieces or erect dividing walls everywhere.

Moving on from the issue of ‘light pollution’ in the space - Batchelor’s  is a good piece. I actually really like his work, which often uses recycling/rubbish that he’s found on the streets, combined with fluorescent lighting. I like how the two elements (here, the ‘rubbish’ is steel and aluminium lightboxes) both contrast (rubbish vs. beautifully coloured light) and complement eachother (both being products of an industrial heritage).

Magic Hour by David Batchelor (2004/7)

On the upper level of this first room stands Cerith Wyn Evans’ S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E 'Trace me back to some loud, shallow, chill, underlying motive’s overspill' (2010). The quote in the title comes from James Merril’s poem The Changing Light at Sandover, composed from messages transmitted by spirits during séances. The piece has got something supernatural about it… the columns look like something aliens might be incubated in. But maybe I’ve just been watching too much sci-fi. Either way, these columns create a tangible presence of something ‘other’ in the room, the columns appearing to ‘breathe’, and they also intermittently radiate heat as the lights are illuminated and then dimmed repeatedly.

Having mentioned the problems associated with having several light art works placed near eachother, the works I enjoyed most throughout the rest of the exhibition were those that had their own dedicated rooms. With the pieces being isolated they were able to completely transform the ambience of the space they inhabit, making for a much more immersive and impactful experience. One such piece was Anthony McCall’s You and I, Horizontal (2005), a solid-light installation - which sounds like a bit of an oxymoron. But when passing through it I did feel like I was moving through some sort of thin skin – a sensation created by the combination of the projected light looking convincingly solid and the artificial mist present in the room.

You and I, Horizontal by Anthony McCall (2005)

Conrad Shawcross’ Slow Arc Inside A Cube IV (2009) turns a room into dizzying planes of moving geometric patterns, reminiscent of a children’s night light projector, casting images across the room. Ann Veronica Janssens’ Rose (2007) transforms its room into an area of altered perception, rose-tinted light flooding your cone cells and producing a calming, borderline-hypnotic state. When I was in the room, many people stood with their eyes closed in front of the lights, enjoying the sense of the altered atmosphere that persisted even once removing your sense of vision.

In the last room was what was undoubtedly my highlight of the whole exhibition: Olafur Eliasson’s Model for a Timeless Garden (2011). I was pretty excited to see this -  I was one of those people that visited his The Weather Project at Tate Modern over and over again in 2003. The piece chosen for this exhibition is stunning. Using strobe lighting against spurting fountains of water, he creates a constantly changing landscape, a night-time water garden, that feels like you’re watching it on a very low frame rate black and white film. The strobe lighting has quite an immediate physical affect on you – rather than simply watching the waterworks, it feels as if their image is being projected directly at you: vision appears and disappears, images pulsate in quick succession.

 Model for a Timeless Garden by Olafur Eliasson (2011)

What I enjoyed most about this exhibition was the fact that a lot of the pieces could be enjoyed on a purely visceral and sensory level. Unlike a lot of modern and contemporary art, so much of which is conceptual - here you don’t have to worry about any lofty concepts the artist may have had in mind when creating the piece – you can simply bathe in the light, absorbing it, casting shadows, playing with it, feeling its warmth, experiencing the way light can seem to physically alter a space, simply enjoying the sensual nature of it.

When I came out of the exhibition, I felt as if I had emerged from quite a physical experience. On the one hand, I felt soothed, like I’d just had light therapy to combat SAD. On the other hand I was a bit dizzy, as if I’d experienced a sensory overload. An odd combination of sensations. It’s rare to leave a gallery with such a visceral, physical sensation – usually you may leave feeling emotionally moved perhaps, or intellectually stimulated – but rarely does the impact manifest itself as physically as it does here. Especially at this time of year, exposure to light in so many different forms has a particular effect, being in such stark contrast to the long nights and grey days.

I’m sure this exhibition will prove to be one of the most popular at The Hayward this year, and rightly so. The exhibition is really accessible – and that’s not due to it having been ‘dumbed down’. I think there’s something inherently alluring and appealing about the sensory experience created by the use and manipulation of light, which is common to everyone, and completely independent from a person’s background, interests or knowledge.

If you do visit, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the experience, even if you do stumble back into the world rubbing your eyes, blinking, and with a slight sense of giddiness.

Light Show

Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre

30 January – 28 April 2013

Tickets: £11, Art Fund members £5, other concessions available

Please note that some installations in the exhibition contain artificial mist, flashing or strobe lighting.

Review - Kaosarn

Over the past few years, Brixton Market and the adjacent Granville Arcade (aka Brixton Village) have proved to be a fertile ground for the germination of a number of new restaurants. Many have been so successful that they have gone on to open further branches elsewhere - Franco Manca for instance. I first ate at Franco Manca in 2009 I think, long before I moved to Brixton, but I had heard such good things on the grapevine that I ‘trekked’ from the other end of south west London to visit. Even back then Brixton was a little bit of a foodie mecca! That day it was raining and I had the Gloucester old spot ham pizza, the hot savouriness of the pizza a stark contrast to the rather chilly market environment, which back then I was completely unaccostomed to. The sourdough pizzeria now has four branches, one of them in Stratford Westfield, which I was rather surprised to stumble across, as the location couldn’t be much more different to Brixton market. Honest Burgers is another of the market’s success stories, last year opening a second restaurant in Soho.

Kaosarn, a Thai restaurant on the edge of Brixton Village, also opened a second restaurant last year, on St John’s Hill in Battersea. Although the Brixton original is lesser-known than its above-mentioned neighbours, it is nonetheless exceedingly popular, and it can be hard to get a seat. They serve authentic Thai food, they serve it fast, and you can bring your own booze. I was excited to visit their new branch, because there, they take reservations. 2012 was the year of queuing, so these days I am relieved to find somewhere you can book, taking the uncertainty out of dinner time. I think my longest stint of queuing last year was a 3-hour wait at Pitt Cue co., although to be fair it was a Friday night, and a lot of that time was spent sitting at the bar - and when I finally ate, the food did not disappoint. Nonetheless, come 2013, the certainty of knowing I can sit down for a meal at a certain time with no hanging about pleases me very much indeed.

I had booked dinner at Kaosarn at 7pm on Tuesday night. When I arrived there wasn’t a single empty table. It never ceases to surprise me how busy restaurants in London always are midweek - you would hardly know we’d been in a recession for the past six years. As I glanced around the fairly bland interior (bar a nice selection of framed photographs lending some character) it was nice to see some familiar faces amongst the waiting staff, a few of which I recognised from the Brixton branch. It took a while to decide what to order as the menu is quite comprehensive, longer than one in Brixton I think, but we finally settled on:

Moo Ping: grilled pork skewers Bangkok style with spicy roasted chilli sauce

Poo Nim Tod: fried soft shell crab with a spicy cucumber and peanut sauce

Som Tum Thai: traditional salad with hot and sour green papaya, chilli, tomatoes, green beans, ground dried shrimp & roasted peanut

These were the starters. They were all presented in quite a pretty way on their plates (although my amateur food photography may suggest otherwise!). The first thing I tried was the soft shell crab. Now, I usually love this, and try to order it whenever I see it on a menu somewhere. However, as you can probably tell from the picture, this one was quite heavily battered – far too much batter for my liking. The batter totally dominated the crab, so that the main taste and texture was a slightly bland batter, with a hint of crab coming through. What a shame! However, after this false start it was onwards and upwards. The salad was perfect – the ideal combination of sweet, sour and fishy savouriness that characterises a lot of Thai food. The texture was great as well – crisp vegetables oozing with juice and a crunch of nut. The pork was a hit as well, its sweet flavour going perfectly with the accompanying spicy sauce.

The starters were of quite a regular size – but the mains were exceptionally generous portions.

Kao Pad Kra-Praw: beef stir-fried with fresh chilli and holy basil, served on rice with a fried egg on top

Pad Thai Noodles: oops, stirred this one up before remembering to take a photo

Thai Green Curry

The beef stir fry I had eaten before at the Brixton branch, and it was just as good as I remembered it. I’ve been told by my flatmate, who grew up in Thailand, that it's very common to serve certain dishes like this with a fried egg on top. I’d never been served a fried egg at any of the many Thai restaurants I’ve visited over the years until I went to Kaosarn, so this family-run restaurant seems to be more authentic than most. I loved the way the flavour of the holy basil (quite different in flavour to Thai sweet basil) pervaded the whole dish, giving it an almost aniseed-like, quite refreshing taste.

The Pad Thai noodles were fantastic – easily the best I’ve ever eaten. I’m usually not that keen on them, always considering them to be the boring, ‘safe’ choice when eating at a Thai restaurant. Here the flavours were perfectly balanced – not too sweet, not too tangy – and the noodles were al dente, so they had a slight springy elasticity making for a nice texture. The prawns were a good size too, not the tiny ones you sometimes get.

The Thai green curry (beef) was delicious. I’m not even going to bother trying to find the words to do it justice.

All in all, a wonderful dining experience. Friendly and fast service, very reasonably priced food, and the food is simple (in the best way), made with fresh good quality ingredients - really delightful to eat. We ended up occupying our table for longer than the 1-hour slot allocated, but never felt rushed or hurried by the staff.

If you’ve not visited Kaosarn yet, I urge you to. It’s Thai food like you’ve never had it before. Or if you have been to Thailand, the food here will probably transport you right back there!

Kaosarn

110 St John’s Hill

London

SW11 1SJ

Tel: 020 7223 7888

BYOB. Cash only.

Death: A self-portrait at The Wellcome Collection

What do these three images have in common?

Well, each one of them was singled out for special scrutiny by my ‘critical eye’ during the six years I spent looking at pictures (sorry, I mean studying History of Art). More importantly, and what may have popped into your head whilst looking at them just now, is that they are all concerned with humanity’s ceaseless need to explore and try to explain death. Humans do this by creating art, and carrying out rituals – sometimes these two activities are one and the same.

Warhol’s Little Electric Chair, one of Goya’s etchings from his The Disasters of War series, a 12^th century Japanese hand scroll depicting hell. Each work from different eras, and the product of very different cultures – but all three connected with a sincere attempt to address this universal concern, this fascination with the great equaliser that is death.

Death is the subject of the new exhibition at the Wellcome Collection. Following my own inquisitive interest in death, I braved ‘snowmaggedon’ on Friday to visit Death: A self-portrait.

I am very fond of The Wellcome Collection. When I ‘grew out of’ The Science Museum, which I regularly visited as a child (and, frankly, after becoming fed up of the constant presence of large numbers of tourists and schoolchildren), I turned to the Wellcome Collection to satisfy my scientific curiosity. For me, a visit to this place kills two birds with one stone, because it explores both science and art/culture.

The Wellcome Collection was founded by Henry Wellcome (1853-1936): a pharmacist, entrepreneur, philanthropist and avid collector of books and objects. He was interested in the history of medicine, including connected subjects such as alchemy, witchcraft, anthropology and ethnography, creating a diverse collection from a number of different cultures and eras. The Wellcome Collection, in its present day form on the Euston Road, opened to the public less than 10 years ago, in 2004.

Interestingly, the exhibition is comprised of objects amassed by another collector (albeit a living one): Richard Harris. Upon entering the exhibition, the variety of objects assembled here immediately confirmed my assumption that my morbid interest in death is not unique but shared by the rest of humanity. Across five rooms, the exhibition groups objects around the following themes: Contemplating Death, The Dance of Death, Violent Death, Love and Death, and Commemoration. Curated in an efficient and tasteful manner, the exhibition thankfully does not give in to the ‘temptation’ to pay tribute to any of the multitude of deathly clichés – no darkened rooms, black walls or purple velvet here.

Stand out pieces for me were:

• A selection from Goya’s The Disasters of War, which have lost none of their emotional weight since their production 200 years ago, during which time many of us have become a desensitized to violent images through their omnipresence in popular culture.
• Otto Dix's Der Krieg was another fascinating colletion of etchings and aquatints, especially given their situation in a room with the above series. It was interesting to see to what extent Goya’s series influenced this more recent one, whose subject matter is World War 1. There are certainly some similarities stylistically, but the immediacy of brutality expressed in Dix’s works really pay tribute to his experiences as a soldier.
• Mexican Day of The Dead skull. I love Day of the Dead artefacts from the perspective of design – the bold colours, the highly decorative patterning. The celebratory intention of the piece also comes as somewhat of a relief, located as it as towards the end of the exhibition, when you have spent the past hour being reminded of your own mortality by countless memento mori.
• The bone chandelier In The Eyes of Others, by Jodie Carey, 2009 (mixed media). I love the concept of creating something decorative with bones, yet the very pure white colouring of the bones places this piece firmly in the realm of artifice. No one was harmed in the production of this artwork! The piece took me back to my visit in 2008 to Sedlec Ossuary, also known as ‘the bone church’ in Kutna Hora, Czech Republic. There, the bones are all real, belonging to an estimated 40,000 – 70,000 long-deceased people.

Bone chandelier at Sedlec Ossuary

One thing I would have been interested in seeing explored here more is the way contemporary societies, cultures and individuals deal with death, perhaps considering some elements of popular culture. But, since this exhibition is based on one man’s collection, I can’t really criticise it for not extending its scope in other directions that might have been of interest to me.

The objects chosen for exhibition here are alternately beautiful, grotesque and curious. Individually they each reveal an attitude towards death; collectively they create a dialogue between these attitudes, each originating from a different place, a different time - from a different individual. I would say that this dialogue reveals more similarities than it does differences. Unsurprisingly perhaps, given that death is the one thing we all have in common – as the proverb says, there are only two things certain in life: death and taxes!

Going forwards, with the world becoming increasingly secular, it will be interesting to see how mankind’s ways of making sense of death evolve with the decline of religious beliefs. In the meantime, I highly recommend visiting this exhibition to catch up on the story so far.

Death: A self-portrait

Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE

Until 24 February 2013

Whiskey Kittens Rock & Roll NYE Party - Kaff Bar

New Year’s Eve can be a bit of a non-event. Expectations run high and subsequently the night itself can be a letdown. My NYE experiences sit in two camps: either a relatively low key night in, or a completely over the top night out that you spend the first week of the new year recovering from. This year I was hoping to strike a comfortable balance between those two possibilities.

As it’s my first New Year's Eve since moving to Brixton, staying in was never really an option. Unsurprisingly I was spoiled for choice, with many of my favourite local haunts promising a great night out – The Duke of Edinburgh putting on a Masquerade Ball, The Windmill offering a night of live music as usual, and the Prince Albert having their (in)famous Offline Club. However, it was Kaff Bar – another favourite of mine, and venue for recent Brixton Blog's Meet Brixtons – that got my vote. They were offering a Rock ‘n’ Roll Party courtesy of Whiskey Kittens.

Whiskey Kittens seemed like the obvious choice. The name evokes thoughts of a debauched night of rock n roll, ie. my idea of a good time. And of course whiskey has long been my spirit of choice. My taste for the drink developed from humble beginnings in my teenage years, when I would drinking Tesco’s own-brand scotch (a stag on the bottle designating its authenticity) in an attempt to stay warm (yes, that's a euphemism for getting drunk) whilst queuing for a gig somewhere like the Astoria. Happily I am now a more sophisticated connoisseur of this most delectable of spirits, but we all have to start somewhere.

I’d heard of Whiskey Kittens before and had been intrigued, so NYE seemed like the perfect time to check them out. Tickets can often be pricey on NYE, but the £15 entry ticket included a cocktail, glass of bubbly at midnight and ‘access’ to a buffet - which seemed more than reasonable to me.

After some drinks and takeaway from Bickles at my gaff, we headed to Kaff. Having spent the previous night at Face Down at The Scala (London’s biggest rock club, apparently) I was interested to see how different these two rock nights would be. At Face Down we saw Knotslip (a Slipknot coverband, obvs) whilst surrounded by a crowd comprised of two types of people: a) teenagers b) people who wished they were still teenagers. This was not a classy affair, and a lot of the audience were the kind that give the metal/alt subculture a bad name. Someone in the queue threw up before even going in. Apparently someone left in an ambulance. Before being admitted to the venue my chewing gum was confiscated by a security guard, who also looked with great suspicion at my keyring (a plastic edamame bean pod) as if it might be a container for pills. I was then given a once over with a metal detector. What a welcome! Later, as the band wrapped up their set, some girls, completely uninvited, decided to gyrate obscenely on stage, for some unknown reason seeking to degrade themselves. After this on the whole rather unpleasant experience (apart from the band who were top notch) I was looking forward to a much classier rock evening with Whiskey Kittens…and I wasn’t disappointed.

As we finally set foot in Kaff at around 11.45pm, the David Bowie tribute act, Cats from Japan, were already in full swing, playing all the hits like ‘Rebel Rebel ‘and ‘Starman’. We grabbed our free cocktails from the barmen (all extremely glamed up, back-combed hair and all, looking like they were in a Cinderella or Poison cover band). Kaff always has quite quirky cocktails – last time I had a 10p Mix which was a candy-sweet cocktail decorated with retro sweets such as Flying Saucers. This time I had what I think was a passionfruit flavoured cocktail with those silver balls (you know, the ones you can use to briefly make it look like you have tongue piercing) floating on top.

Cats in Japan singing us into 2013

After a brief intermission to count down to midnight (no Europe’s The Final Countdown here) the band proceeded to finish their set, then join the rest of us to dance the night away. Three burlesque acts (Luna de Lovely, Ava Iscariot and Spank Grrrl) treated us to their titiliating routines whilst we sipped our glasses of bubbly. Although I'm sure some people will disagree, I believe burlesque to be something that empowers and liberates women, and so these girls provided a stark and most welcome contrast to what I had witnessed the previous night. 

When the burlesque acts were finished, the Whiskey Kittens DJs started spinning their records and the audience invaded the stage, turning it into a dancefloor. The vibe of the night was rock’n’roll but the music was much more diverse than that – although we had some rock classics like Van Halen’s Jump, there were also plenty of great pop tunes from the likes of Lady Gaga and Girls Aloud. There was a great, friendly atmosphere – very relaxed with much bonhomie. Even the bouncers were super nice.

In the early hours of the morning, I walked home on a wave of positivity (laced with some booze). What a fantastic night it had been. Bring on 2013.