This May be your month
Another month, another pink, squealing litter of new things going on around our bountiful sow of a city – and, no chance of catching them all.
Still, we can have a stab at grabbing the stragglers at the very least; for example, on the2nd of May we'll be trying to avoid the usual Friday-night collection of alcohol-related injuries, by going to the Curzon Soho Cinema's midnight movie.
It's a once-a-month late night showing, starting at 11:30pm.
Not only do you get a classic or cult movie, but they cherry pick a low-budget short to show at the beginning too, so you get to see the elbow-grease smears of some plucky, young things alongside your celluloid heavyweight. This month Roger Corman will be there in person to introduce two of his greatest films: The Intruder and The Masque of the Red Death - get there from 9:30pm onwards to enjoy a free beer and some live music with your £12 ticket. www.curzoncinemas.com
We'll be prompting the question 'are you compensating for something?' on Sunday 18th May when we whip out our super-sized telescopic lens for Shoot London Lite (not affiliated with the dirt rag 'news' paper of the same name, we believe). Having honed our hunting skills at Easter we think we're in with a chance of winning this photography-related street game around the Southbank. Gather your team of four, sign up on the website ready to receive your clues (£22 per team), get your concrete-jungle fatigues on and see if you can out-snap us (of course, you won't be able to because our equipment is enormous and extremely expensive, but there's nothing stopping you from trying, pipsqueak).
http://www.shootexperience.com
Twisting our lens all day is thirsty work, so once we've fished out something kookily vintage or mildly obscene to wear, we'll be hanging around the newly-opened Star of Bethnal Green. It's a stunning novelty in this ropey bit of old-man's land to find a boozer that doesn't require you to hand in your knives, rope-belts and missing teeth at the door. Not only has it been stripped out, dolled up and stuffed full of young creatives (you can tell from the haircuts), but the new management are lining up an experimental list of acts to grace the miniature downstairs stage - they may turn out to be shriek-ey, posturing, synth-pedal junkies, but they'll sound muffled underneath our ironic panda ear-muffs from the safe distance of the upstairs chill-out. www.starofbethnalgreen.com
Of course, no month would be complete without gorging ourselves to the point of discomfort in a reasonably priced eatery – and the lucky venue to witness our Olympic routine of stomach-stretching this month is Vita Organic. They're a cramped purveyor of vegan goodies on Wardour Street - you get a giant plate, you choose a few 'scoops' dinner-lady style from their gently heated tureens of chick-pea curry, aubergine ratatouille and the like and plonk yourself on one of the numerous wee stools for a hearty chow-down. Ok, it's not quite up there with the usual Ed's Diner post-work grease fest, but you can eat a lot of very tasty food (3 scoops for £5.50) and not feel as though you need to put your soul through a mangle afterwards to wring out the lard.
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