London Lights, by James Hamilton

This book is a great little number for anyone who is suffering from urban angst, or who has forgotten why they love London so. It perfectly encapsulates one of the most industrious and creative periods in the city?s history ? 1805 to 1851 ? by looking at the figures from all disciplines and walks of life who took such great strides forwards during that time ? Babbage, Keats, Faraday, Nash to name but four from a cast of hundreds. It is effectively the biography of half a century, a collection of warm and credible anecdotes, which pasted together make not only a great read, but also a vivid account of why not only London but Britain as a whole was once top dog. It is appropriately billed as the tale of ?the Minds that moved the City that Shook the World?.

Londonist was particularly amazed at how all these eccentric (but largely likeable) movers and shakers connected, at dinners and lectures and through unlikely collaboration in what would now be seen as quite different disciplines. What spiffing japes they all had together.

Anyway ? highly recommended. Go buy (or borrow) a copy today. And be wary of this Londonist at the next pub quiz, as her history ain?t half bad after reading this.

A new survey by the University of East London has produced a map portraying religious segregation in the capital, which concludes that religion is a bigger dividing factor in the city than racial differences. Only 3% of Londoners live in an area which may be deemed racially segregated, while up to 25% dwell in religious ?enclaves?. A poke around in the nitty-gritty of this report, which sees measures of economic and social well-being thrown into the equation, shows that many of those living in these religious quarters are prospering under such conditions ? only one community is suffering any degree of deprivation, namely the Muslim community.

A more general approach to the data which the university has assembled cuts through the stats to the core of the matter. The fact is that there is an increasing number of Muslims living in the capital (607,000 at the 2001 census), and that many of them live in an area which is traditionally socially deprived, the East End (at the time of the same census, something like 36.4% of the inhabitants of Tower Hamlets were Muslim). Finchley and Golders Green have for many years been recognised as quintessentially Jewish areas (one main reason for this being the need to live within an eruv), whilst parts of Wembley and Southall are home to most of the Sikh and Hindu communities: this is old news. But both sets of immigrant communities started their London life in the East End, firstly the Jews, before and during World War 2, and then in the post-war years it was the turn of the Pakistanis and Indians. It is perhaps the only area of London in which refugees/immigrants can either afford to live or find ready accommodation, and thus gives the largely false impression that the most recent wave of new Londoners have chosen to bunch together.

Londonist does not like the term segregation. London is one of the most ghetto-free and friendly cities on the planet, and surveys such as this prove little and help matters even less. Post 7/7, the Muslim community in the capital has made a big effort to integrate even further. And there are some ?surveys? which by their very sensationalist nature serve to reinforce whatever it was they were trying to prove ? a community which believes it is segregated will act ever increasingly so. As the Bishop of London has pointed out:

"If you exile religious communities to the margins, then they will start to speak the words of fire among consenting adults, and the threat to public order and the public arena, I think, will grow and grow."

Image courtesy of gwire?s flickr stream.

It's a different, puzzling and frankly bizarre world in the bingo hall; the little slips of paper, the special pens, the stream of what sounds like nonsense coming from the chap at the front which only the initiated are able to translate into numbers... still, it is a world of winners and losers, of champions and inspirational figures. Even figures that stand below 5 foot tall have an indefinable streak of success running through them.

Jason Owen, the 4ft 4in tall caller for the Mecca Bingo on Garratt Lane, is in the finals of the Southern Bingo Calling Championships. Though small, his range as a bingo caller is big and has earned him a devoted gaggle of fans who call themselves Jason's Bingo Bunnies. Seriously. The man is the highlight of the week for regulars of the south London number circling game. The 50-strong band of bingo groupies will accompany Jason to the finals in a coach, no doubt playing some sort of number game on the motorway to pass the time. We hope the many motorway services canteens along their route are prepared for them.

The first prize in the championships are a trip to Las Vegas and £500 cash and while we're not bingo bunnies ourselves, the idea of this guy taking his schtick to the States with a handful of cash and a cunning knack for calling out numbers puts a smile on our otherwise bitter and ironically twisted faces. Let's hope the short chap wins and gets the chance to take his very special brand of South London "legs eleven" and "two fat ladies" across the Atlantic; now who wouldn't want to see bingo run by a little man take off in the big casinos?

Image by Pikaluk on Flickr, courtesy of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 licence.

There will be multi-media visuals inspired by Kandinsky (art school cool) and the bar will be serving tapas (the best kind of date food) and, of course, booze before and post performance (which only lasts an hour, leaving plenty of time for earnest discussion, playful repartee, several glasses of wine and quite possibly some snogging).

Tickets are a respectable £15-20 (showing you're no cheapskate and like to support experimental arts as well as crumbling heritage sites) and available online and from the Box Office on 020 7702 2789.

Wilton's is in the East End (shows you know your London and aren't afraid of the down at heel) and just a stone's throw from the river (for that romantic late night walk home).

Image of Claire Booth courtesy of the Wilton's Music Hall website.

On September 6th and 7th, Joe makes his UK debut at the Arts Theatre in the West End. Londonist met with Joe to talk about stand-up, the writing process, and material theft.

Introduce yourself!
My name is Joe Rogan, and I'm a stand up comic from Los Angeles. I'm doing a syndicated show about the UFC, but most of my time is spent writing and performing stand up comedy, as well as writing for my website, www.joerogan.net.

How did you get involved with the UFC?
I've been involved in martial arts ever since I was a little kid. When the UFC needed someone to interview fighters after their bouts they asked me and I jumped at the chance. That was 1996. I worked for them for a few years, but it was the dark ages when the sport was banned from cable television and could only be held in weird little towns in the south. I stopped working for them in 1998, and then when the new owners purchased it in 2001 we became friends, and eventually they asked me to work for them too. I love it. As a fan, it's truly a dream job.

Have you ever experienced any backlash from you openly declaring certain stories in The Bible "retarded"?
Only from people dumb enough to disagree with me. I think tolerance of all sorts of ridiculous ideas is fine and dandy if you want to keep a peaceful society. Do what you want, think what you want and all that good stuff, but I think that at the end of the day when people are freely expressing their opinions on subjects it's important to be completely honest about how you perceive things. There may very well be a God. I'm far too dumb to be able to argue about it one way or the other. What I can argue though, is that a group of people that lived thousands of years ago who believed that the world was flat and the sun was 17 miles away were probably wrong about a lot of other shit too, including stories about people walking on water, and coming back from the dead. What's shocking to me isn't that someone would say that in this day and age with all the access to information we have that old fairy tales are retarded, but rather that you could get someone to argue that they're NOT retarded.

Are the jokes you write when you're not high different to the ones you write under the influence?
Yeah, the jokes I write when I'm high are funny.

What inspired you to get into comedy? Were you a fan of stand-up as a kid?
Yes, I was a huge fan of Richard Pryor, and later Sam Kinison. Those were the guys that inspired me to love the art of stand up comedy. I had a lot of reservations about getting into it, though. It was really my friends that talked me into doing it. I owe them a great deal.

You've got a reputation for outing comedians who copy the jokes of other comics. Do you think people like Carlos Mencia purposefully and actively steal material, or do you have another explanation as to why it happens?

Absolutely. They're not creative or intelligent enough to come up with material on their own, and when they hear something funny, they just repeat it, or twist the words around a little to try to make it "theirs." It's really a matter of them not having the courage to dig deep enough; to scour their mind and expose the dark corners of their psyche. I think anyone of reasonable intelligence can be creative, it just involves letting go and being honest, and for a lot of people that's just too real. It's much easier to let other people do it and then copy what they say. When it's really obvious is when you read what they write, or listen to them speak off the cuff. Then they're exposed for who they really are.

In previous interviews, you've emphasised how important you think the Internet is for comedians. I understand you have two full-time employees to handle your web presence. What do they do?
One of them is in charge of all my online video content. He's a really talented editor, and a very creative guy. He makes all my "JoeShows" on www.joerogan.net and he films and records all my shows so that I can review them later. The other employee is in charge of managing my MySpace page and updating the dates on my website. He sends out bulletins advertising my upcoming shows.

What are your thoughts on the plethora of comedy websites powered by user content, in regards to finding new talent?
I think it's great. The internet is a truly fucking amazing resource. It creates the ability to promote shows and makes it an open thing that anyone can have access to. This is an amazing time for comics. With some hard work and smart writing you can develop a following just on the internet alone with blogs that people can read and funny videos that people can watch. Before the internet you always needed help, whether it was radio, TV, print, etc - you always had to count on someone else to get the word out. Not any more. The other stuff certainly still helps, but you can get a lot done on your own now, and do it completely uncensored.

Tell us about your best ever gig?
As far as stand up comedy goes, there's been so many great ones that no one show stands out in particular. Any show where the audience has a great time and I have fun with them is the new best show. I have this running gag with my girlfriend where I come home from a gig, and I'll tell her that it was the best show I've ever done. I'm serious when I say it, but I say it so often that it's sort of become a joke.

And the worst?
As for the worst gig, once I had to do stand up at a "jack and jill" strip club in Woonsocket Rhode Island way back around 1989. What a "jack and jill" strip club is, is a guy goes up and does his little strip tease, and then the girl goes up and does hers. In between them I would tell jokes and then introduce them. The whole scene was completely surreal. There was only one man and one woman performer for the entire night, and they both looked like they had been let out of a meth clinic about 20 minutes before the show; fleshy, toneless bodies littered with bad home made tattoos that they tried to cover up with bandannas, weird scars, greasy hair - the whole deal. The audience (all 8 of them) looked even worse. To say I bombed wouldn't be honest, because when you bomb one of the saddest parts about it are the sympathy laughs.

I didn't even get those. It was nothing but my shitty, amateur jokes and silence. They didn't even look embarrassed for me. To this day I'm not even sure if they spoke English. They just sat there and stared at me. I remember being on stage thinking that one day when I've "made it" I'm going to look back on this day and laugh. I think I spent the entire two hour ride home trying to summon a UFO to come down and abduct me.

Bearing in mind that the correct answer is Poirot, who is your favourite detective?
Poirot? How DARE you. The greatest detective in the history of the universe was Inspecter Clouseau. Peter Sellers, bitch. Respect.

Pff, incorrect! But back to comedy - where do you want to go from here?
I'm enjoying every single aspect of my life right now; I love doing stand up, I love working for the UFC, I love all the traveling - I couldn't be happier. I really just want to continue doing what I'm dong. Keep writing, keep performing, keep my mind open and enjoy the trip.

Whenever we interview people, we normally finish by asking if they've ever been sick on the Tube. As you're not a Londoner: have you ever been sick on Dane Cook?
Is that a gay joke?

Joe Rogan plays the Arts Theatre, 6/7 Great Newport Street, London WC2H 7JB on September 6th and 7th at 10pm (doors 9.30pm). Tickets available here, or by calling 08700 600 100. Nearest tube is Leicester Square. Photo © Dan Dion.

Following yesterday's talks, RMT members have decided to suspend their strike. And just after we'd persuaded you all to go to work on space hoppers. Dang, that would have been a sight.

Don't dismiss alternative modes of trasport too quickly, though. The strike may be over, but its effects are not. TfL told the BBC:

"Some things we hope will start fairly soon but the suspension came so late last night that it will be impossible to start normally."

Indeed the Tube tracker widgety-gadget thing shows little improvement on yesterday. Seems the Victoria and Central are now back in action, but limping along.If only the Northern Line was showing 'severe delays', things would seem more normal.

Sack Bob Crow. Get some proper crows in. That's what we say.

They're good at using tools, despite being a bunch of rookies.

Image by Cory Doctored-crow.

(This is the kind of tenuous, pun-laden nonsense you get if you rely on us to make the weekly Touch Up London entry. The quality of this column is always greatly improved when someone else puts the image together. So why not boot up Photoshop and show us how to do it. Send entries to Londonist - at gmail - dot com.)

Background pic taken from cactusbones' Flickr photostream.

Area 10 Project Space is an artistic Never Never Land, hidden in wasteland in Peckham, overlooking the now-filled-in canal and overshadowed by the award-winning, (albeit strangely short of books) library. To step through its doors is to enter another world, where aerial perfomers tumble and artists build the most amazing follies out of scrap and left-over timber. It is a magical realm of possibility and fantasy. And occasionally they let the public in?.

It is actually located in a former timber yard, and was secured on a temporary basis for a peppercorn rent from the council around 7 years ago. Since its initial conception as a practice area/workshop for local working artists, it has hosted film nights, cabaret, community breakfasts, circuses, and regular collaborative exhibitions. And its eery vastness makes it a great backdrop for film and music video production. The running committee has recently obtained charitable status for the project, which at least gives it security for the foreseeable future.
We caught up with Anila Ladwa, one of the founders:

Why Area 10? What gave rise to the name?
Area 10 is the scientific name/reference to an area of the human brain that is responsible for multi-tasking.

Is the warehouse actually a good place for artists to work? It seems pretty draughty to Londonist.
It is exceptional in size and in character and features, but yes this in itself has been a challenge for some artists and an inspiration to others. However you will be amazed at what can be created in a draught warehouse under a leaky roof!

How do visiting artists find out about the space ? is it all word of mouth?
Mostly word of mouth, often through people who have come to a show or participated in one.

There have been rumours over the years that the land is to be converted into an arts complex. Will there be room for Area 10 in this, or would it lose its edge?
We hope that future developments on the Eagle Wharf site incorporate some sort of arts space, it would be fantastic if they could keep some of the building itself within the new build. We can?t speak for Area 10?s future as it has been an experimental platform for so many artists and projects out there ? an experiment in itself.

The current performance is called Collision ? can you tell us a bit about it?
Collision is a 3 night artist-led fest on 6, 7, 8 September, with live moving image, sound art, installation and sculpture, performance, music and film. Each night is different and there is lots to see. Please visit the website for details.

Is it true all they say about Peckham being the centre of the artistic universe and all that?
Of course it is! It is what Hoxton used to be and is no longer.
There is loads going on but it is all pretty underground, that?s what?s so cool about it.

Area 10?s favourite ?artistic? bit of London is?.
(i.e. if you had to recommend one arts based thing to see in London for a tourist for example)
Well if they?re not coming to a show at Area 10 then for a similar underground feel would be an evening at the Shunt Lounge at London Bridge.

Have you ever been sick on the tube?
No ? I tend not to travel the tube most of the time!

COLLISION is on at Area 10 in Peckham Square until Saturday 8th September (from 8pm each evening). Not to be missed.

Londonist was awfully tickled to learn of the launch of London?s very own ?Starmap?. From this day forward, for the price of £5.95, eager tourists and starry-eyed Londoners will be able to follow in the footsteps of their fave ?A? list celebrities. Not only can they stalk them at home, but they can hang out, paparazzi style at the right bars and restaurants to star spot, and even re-enact bestest bits from London movies on location.

Hollywood has long offered this facility to the star-struck, voyeuristic or just plain curious: it is amazing really that it has taken so long for London to catch up. It is of course well known that London is the cultural capital of the universe ? it is good to know that we are also striving for recognition in the sphere of tinsel and tat as well.

Anyway, tongue in cheek aside, we cannot see that this map will do any particular harm. Thanks to the sterling work of the gentlemen of the press, famous sorts can barely move in London without being snapped and commented upon, and so this wonder map is not really divulging anything new. We were a bit alarmed to note the nature of the job advert for map vendors, but we will put this down to over-zealous marketing.

This is a natural bi-product of the current success that our city is enjoying as a cool and happening resort. Londonist would love to have written a witty but denigrating post poo-poo-ing the whole idea ? but most of us are just a teensy bit curious and impressed by fame and the famous, and some of us even admit to the childish and decidedly uncool retention of an autograph book?

Image courtesy of what what?s flickr stream.

Madness plays the O2 on Friday 14th November as part of a quick UK arena tour. Tickets are on sale at 9am tomorrow morning.

Kanye West brings his ?Glow in the Dark Tour? to London in November for two dates. Catch him at Hammersmith Apollo on Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd November. Tickets are £30 and on sale at 9am tomorrow.

The Rakes have announced a club night at SE One on Friday 9th November. Running from 9pm ? 3am, they?ll be joined by The Metros, We Start Fires and The Ghost Frequency. Tickets are £17.50 each and on sale now.

Are you a teenage girl or middle aged mother? In that case you might be interested in seeing Enrique Iglesias on Friday 9th November at Wembley Arena. Tickets go on sale at 9am tomorrow.

Mercury Nominee Bat For Lashes plays Koko on Monday 29th October. Tickets are on sale now at £12.50 each.

Finally, one of this Londonista?s favourite bands The National have put another London date on sale at Shepherds Bush after selling out their first date. They now play both Wednesday 7th and Thursday 8th November. Get your tickets now!

Photo of Kanye West is taken from Chris Doerr's flickr stream under the creative commons license.