The OSP on Fulham Palace Road has had a chequered past. In its glory days it was a boxer-owned pub “The Golden Gloves” but I first knew it as The Old Suffolk Punch and there was a great, if scuffed, geezer feel to the place — my favourite work boozer. Then it went through a refurb and a phase as the (initials only) OSP just when this review in 2003 [fancyapint.com] was written. The OSP at that time was an awful, soul-destroying place. There were light-box murals of grinning early 20-somethings having a GREAT TIME, looking like low-rent Tony Stone stock photos. It was enough to make the gods of the public house weep into their ports and lemons. A wretched attempt to create a terrible West End bar in the terrible West of Hammersmith.
Thankfully that passed — if a little too slowly — and it became The Old Suffolk Punch once again. A reliable if unremarkable Greene King pub. Well I do have one remark, though I imagine it’s about Greene King food menus chain-wide: The Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding wrap with gravy (and chips). Behold:
Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pud ... in a wrap
From the menu my colleagues and I were imagining a bread wrap around slices of beef and some tiny Yorkshire puds, but it was probably the IPA getting in the way of the obvious interpretation. A flat Yorkshire pud-style batter pancake was the wrap. Brilliant. You pick it up by the batter wrap with the beef and horseradish sauce trapped inside and dip it in the bowl of gravy. NOM, NOM, and three times NOM.
Well it was new to me. This update on a classic, I can get behind. And in to my tum.
In the late 90s, in Action and Drama, Bis cast themselves as meta-pop activists:
Pop music’s not gonna die / It just has no direction / We need a plan of action
But what was their plan of action? The accompanying track Eurodisco (a worry about pop stagnating into inward-looking genres) had its best mix by Stuart Price — an Erasure-ish version that omits Manda’s vocals. Where has Manda gone? Price went on to be the main producer of Madonna’s 2005 Confessions album and the non-more Eurodisco Abba-sampling “Hung Up”. more »
What’s this through the extra-large double-door of the 24th?
You’ve played the freeform Line Rider, right? (And if not, this truly is the best double-dose flash game day of the advent for you.) It’s been given a tiny festive makeover on the original site, but nothing like SNOW LINE. Help Santa collect all the presents. Easy. And no drugs content at all.
What a lovely day for an adventure with BEARS. WarBears that is. A lot of flash games are there for a 1 minute distracting thrill while a progress bar makes its slow way to the end. But If you fancy actively dodging more work, and why not, everyone else is on Facebook and eating Quality Street, here are some 20 minutes point-and-click adventures with a cute team of techno-ninja bears. Features thrills and excitement, but probably mostly frustration at the unpredicatable, but cute, consequences of your actions.
WarBear Missions Start with Mission 1, but it’s all good. Use the ‘quick start’ button to skip the intro.
There’s a song on the radio, a catchy ear-worm of a song, and it’s been on the radio a lot now that you mention it. It drags you in, “now listen to my words” it commands. How might you react?
Reaction A “No colours anymore, I want them to turn black”
Ian Curtis, so the story goes, heard the song “Love Will Keep Us Together” sung by Captain and Tenille and was revolted. Somehow this Neil Sedaka-penned song (highest UK chart position: 32), an unrelentingly jaunty paean to the enduring and constructive power of love, grated with the adulterous misanthrope. So when the boys in the band came up with one of their really great hooky (HA HA) melodies, out came the notebooks with his very own misery memoir. Result:
Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart (Highest UK chart position: 13)
OK, so misanthrope is overstating it – he was a joy to drink with. It was only the constant skim reading of the ‘off-beat’ yet actually fashionable literature of pain and suffering, Ballard Hesse Gogol, and his own emotional insecurity that led him to vandalism – to take a watercolour chocolate-box confection and piss all over it. BLACK IT’S ALL BLACK. SO COLD, ALWAYS SO FUTILE!
All four sports-bloods: Steve H, Tim E, Tim H and TimPete B. Featuring Elbow, Horse Man and a song about football.
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Steve H, Magnus A, Hazel R and Julio D give a surprise test. Featuring Mr Kirk’s Nightmare William Shatner, Tiny Tim, Richard Barrett, Tori Amos and… hmm, the Goodies?
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Lollards Of POX more like! Pete Baran, Rob Brennan, William Swygart and Bec Toennessen – licensed to ill. Featuring Cherry Melody’s “Chickenpox”, Booker T and the MGs “Chickenpox”, White Stripes “Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine”, Beastie Boys “Time to Get Ill”, the Quincy theme, and Siobhán Donaghy “Medevac”. Feverish about the fanciful, fanciful about the feverish – dropping medicine so you can pick it up. Feel free to tell us that we shouldn’t be so mean about homoeopathy.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
“The Trouble With Pop” – a conversation between Tom Ewing, Hazel Robinson, Alex Macpherson and Pete Baran. Featuring Bat for Lashes, Mastodon, Lady Sovereign, Blackout Crew, Gucci Mane and Girls Aloud.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Musical Euthenasia with Kat, Pete, Sarah and Magnus.
An update on Kat’s work-in-progress, “Hollyoaks The Musical”, takes the Lollards from overture to immature, around Japanese digi-musicals and South Park, and the musical flops of Superman and Carrie. Chess makes them wonder if perhaps there’s any mileage in a musical based on the works of Abba. Hmm.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
What’s this through the extra-large double-door of the 24th?
What a lovely day for an adventure with BEARS. WarBears that is. A lot of flash games are there for a 1 minute distracting thrill while a progress bar makes its slow way to the end. But If you fancy actively dodging more work, and why not, everyone else is on Facebook and eating Quality Street, here are some 20 minutes point-and-click adventures with a cute team of techno-ninja bears. Features thrills and excitement, but probably mostly frustration at the unpredicatable, but cute, consequences of your actions.