leonardcohenforum.com

Teensy question:

to the cinema

9 TVs [two of them gigantic] and we're off to the cinema?? Will wonders never cease .

Perhaps, if you sold of those biggees, you could rent your Forum friends a right respectable room in the Palace ... and leave the meat workers to get the slabs out for the morning market. With your connections, of course, if the Palace is free, you could just take the tv funds and cater the event .


~ Lizzy

Padma and Diane, looks like our number has increased by two. My brothers are joining us also. Think they got caught up in the frenzy. Quite right too, I say! I won't be going solo after all By the way, does anyone know if the Travel lodge has a bar? A friend of mine in Ireland is convinced they have.

Birdonawire

I've just found out that the City Road Travelodge does indeed boast a bar plus a restaurant, well a Bar Café as they call it.

I'm not too sure of the opening times, or more importantly the closing times.

Here is the info I've gleaned from their site.

The City Road Travelodge boasts a Bar Café, where you can unwind at the end of the day in comfort. We serve breakfast, evening meals, and drinks from the bar and you'll get a warm welcome from our friendly staff.
Just look for the menu in your room, in the Bar Café, or on this page.
· Breakfast buffet, evening meals and bar
· Breakfast bags
· Drinks and snacks from vending machines
Breakfast buffet
The All-you-can eat breakfast buffet gives you the choice of either a hot cooked breakfast, toast, cereal or yoghurt as well as hot drinks and juice - for the perfect kick-start to the day. Help yourself as many times as you like for just £7.50 and kids eat absolutely FREE!*
Fully licensed bar
We've selected some great wines to tickle your taste buds as well as quality lagers, beers, soft drinks and spirits. Feel free to eat, drink and be merry until well past your bedtime!
Snacks and evening meals
Our Bar Café menu has plenty of choice to suit you. From ciabattas to pizzas, fish, lasagna and salad, you're bound to find something to satisfy. We also offer desserts and a variety of side dishes which are great to share but even better to keep all to yourself!
* Up to two children 15 years or under eat free of charge for each paying adult. Offer excludes Northern Ireland and Spain.

Typical Bar Café menu
This is a typical example. Some items may not be available at all sites.
Appetisers
Cheese & bacon loaded potato skinsServed with salad garnish and a sour cream and chive dip £3.95
Soup of the day (v)This classic starter is served with warm ciabatta bread and butter. Please ask a member of staff for today's special £3.25
BBQ chicken wingsChicken wings marinated in a delicious BBQ sauce served with salad garnish and BBQ dip £4.25
Garlic & cheese dough balls (v)Fresh, cheesy garlic bread served with a garlic and oregano dip.Perfect as a side order £2.50


Main courses
Steak & ale pieThis old favourite is a definite must have. Tender pieces of steak cooked in a rich ale gravy, served with chips and garden peas £7.95
Cheeseburger A juicy 6oz grilled burger topped with melted cheese. Served on a white bap
with side salad, chips and BBQ dip £6.25
Chicken burgerBattered chicken served on on a white bap with salad garnish, chips and spicy salsa dip.If you're really peckish why not order our onion rings on the side? £6.45
Spaghetti bologneseA traditional favourite, just as you like it £6.50
Chicken saladHot strips of lightly battered chicken served on a bed of fresh salad with spicy salsa dip.Pick up some of our Tortilla chips, for extra dipping satisfaction? £6.75
Chicken tikka masalaTender pieces of chicken tikka cooked in a rich, creamy masala sauce.
This spicy dish is served with rice and naan bread £7.95
Mushroom dopiaza (v)Sliced button mushrooms in a robust, tangy sauce with tomatoes, spices and roasted onions.
Served with rice and naan bread £7.50
LasagneLayers of pasta and bolognese, topped with creamy sauce and finished with a covering of grated cheddar and mozzarella cheese. Served with salad garnish.Perfect with our garlic dough balls £6.25
Fish & chipsThis great British main consists of battered cod, served with chunky chips, garden peas, tartar sauce and a wedge of lemon £6.95


Stonebaked pizzas
10.5" thin crust pizzas - to eat in or take to your room.Grab a side of garlic and cheese dough balls to go with your pizza for a taste of Italy
Classic tomato & cheese margherita (v)Mozzarella, tomato and oregano £6.75
HawaiianHam, pineapple, tomato and oregano £6.95
PepperoniPepperoni, tomato and oregano £6.95


Ciabattas
All our sandwiches are served on ciabatta bread, accompanied with salad garnish and tortilla chips
Chicken & mayonnaise £4.50
Tuna & mayonnaise £4.25
Cheese & onion in a low fat mayonnaise (v) £4.25


On the side
Onion rings (v) £1.95
Chips (v) £1.95
Tortilla chips & salsa dip (v) £1.75
Side salad with french dressing (v) £1.75

A range of delicious dips
Sour cream & chive £0.35
Spicy salsa £0.35
BBQ sauce £0.35
Garlic & oregano £0.35


Desserts
Sticky toffee puddingA favourite served with rich butterscotch sauce and vanilla ice cream £2.95
Apple crumbleMelt-in-your-mouth, warm apple crumble served with your choice of hot custard or ice cream £2.95
Mad about passionCrunchy biscuit base topped with passion fruit ice cream £3.25


Kids menu
Spaghetti Bolognese £3.25
Cheese & tomato pizza (v) £2.95
Chicken bites & chips £3.25
Vanilla ice cream £1.25


Jacket potatoes
The classic baked potato with your choice of filling, served with salad garnish.If you're feeling really hungry go for a side dish of Tortilla chips!
Chicken & mayonnaise £4.25
Tuna & mayonnaise £3.95
Cheese & onion in a low fat mayonnaise (v) £3.95

Diane wrote:Yes, come on Michael. What with all your fame and influence, surely you can sort somewhere for an LC gang to meet apres concert. I mean we have people coming from all over the globe, brimming with great expectations of London. You're not just all talk are you?

Otherwise, the Kings Head sounds just fine, Padma. We might get a lock in (I guess that term is redundant these days).

I did suggest the lock in to them and they made strange guffawing sounds.....I took that to be a "no" but who knows.... I am quite embarrassed that here we are in London and can't find a suitable venue! But we are restricted by closing times and strict music licensing laws (although I have no idea exactly what they are). ...and a lot of places charge for hiring rooms. For those of you who are not aware the Barbican is in the City of London and a lot of places in the City close at the weekends.

I'm hanging all our hopes on our well-connected QC. I'm sure Michael will have a few words in the right places - did he say he was catching a movie with Phil tonight?

Padma, the King's Head sounds fine. We can't expect you to find something that ain't there. It promises to be an excellent day, the whole thing.

Ever since I have been to London (7 or 8 times) my home was Bayswater. Aged 17 I stayed with my friends in the Leinster Hotel. I think it was 25 pounds a night for the four of us. I remember the great bar they had and my favorite songs were Wings "listen to what the man said" and 10cc's "I'm not in love". It was dark in the room and dark was that song. I remember the staff in the kitchen who used to dance to "I can see clearly now" at breakfast time, while we almost couldn't see anything because of the beers and the cheap wine we had the night before. Of course I remember my pen-friend Judith from Alton and Virgina from Bentley whom we visited for a day and one of my great comments, that I find the English butter very salty was disgraced by showing me the package which said "Made in Germany". Bingo. A few years later we found Angelo's club in Bayswater. The bar had opened until 3 a.m and you had to ring at the door and you were looked up by Angelo, a Greek, and whenever he found your face somehow interesting he would let you in. He really liked us Germans so he would smile when he saw us and wave us in.

Now I am looking forward to meeting you all and to get in touch with the Man. He told me he was a hockeyplayer and I'd like to discuss sports with him.

liverpoolken wrote:Birdonawire

Just look for the menu in your room, in the Bar Café, or on this page.
· Breakfast buffet, evening meals and bar
· Breakfast bags
· Drinks and snacks from vending machines
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Nice one Ken. Always good to know there's food and drink close at hand. Although i'm not too sure about the 'Breakfast bags'! Are they like the barf bags you get on planes? If the breakfast is not up to scratch then use the bag and try something else? A very wealthy ancient Roman thing to do if you ask me. Think i'm beginning to like the idea now.

I thought I wouldn't be free on 20 October, so didn't pursue a ticket. Frustratingly, now it seems I will be. If anyone hears of a spare ticket (illness etc), please pm me, even on Saturday morning itself (I live only two and a half hours from the Barbican).

After the recent deluge of appreciation for LC’s recent sale of his over priced prints I was wondering if any of our art lovin’ brothers and sisters would be joining me before the concert at the Barbican’s latest exhibition, Seduced.
I can’t promise any doodles only plenty of 'intelligent' sex.

Seduced which opened at the Barbican today, bills itself as a survey show of "art and sex from antiquity to now," but is really something far more shocking - an evocative, intelligent, and sensitive overview of sex.
Seduced seems like an easy sell for the Barbican, especially after their Nobuyoshi Araki retrospective received such well-deserved high regard, but in actuality nothing in this show is easy. Because every generation wants to imagine that it invented or perfected sexuality, Seduced's most saleable shock-value comes from exposing today's porn-savvy viewers to roughly 300 works spanning all orientations, 2,000 years and various cultures. But even in an art world and mass culture saturated with salacious imagery, the real voltage comes from seeing sex represented with maturity.
Maturity in this instance has no relationship to "grown-up" ideas about serious sex, although it was nice to have a break from seeing Terry Richardson's ubiquitous erection. Sex in Seduced is truly mature because curators Marina Wallace, Joanne Bernstein and Martin Kemp culled a collection of history's greatest artists showing sex in all its guises: as poignant and puerile, feverish and aesthetic, joyful and alienating, titillating and technical.
Devoid of sappy sentiment or masturbatory misanthropy, the emotional spectrum on view ranges from 1950's clinical images of genitals to depictions by Rembrandt, Fragonard and Boucher of Zeus's various conquests; Hans Bellmer's, Robert Mapplethorpe's and Francis Bacon's odes to Sade; and Heartbeat, the poignant slideshow of 44 images that Nan Goldin took of gay and straight friends, all evidently and contagiously in love with their partners. Blowjob, an Andy Warhol black and white film projected on an upstairs wall, is of the most unnervingly intoxicating pieces, albeit one of the least explicit, only focusing on an unknown blond boy's angelic face.
In many instances, the most affecting aspect of the art was knowing how the sex was a powerful element that is impossible to separate from other aspects of our lives and identities. Feeling intimate with Koons through seeing him in staged sexual situations with his ex-wife, Ilona Staller, but also knowing their love and post-love stories, injects the Made in Heaven series with more pulling-power than anything Staller herself could have made in her porn career. Seeing Mapplethorpe's iconic S&M images carries the added frisson of knowing his, and their, irreverent political history. And while his work is only a part of the exhibition, Araki (whose photo of the semi-closed slit of a girl's eye is the show's poster image) could still be considered the patron saint of the show. A grid of black and white images including ones of juicy, raw fruit, a snail sliding on genital skin and a diamond necklace placed between a girl's hairless labia by the Japanese artist who loved his wife and any perversion that he came across, stretches over the staircase connecting the ancient art with its more contemporary incarnations.
Seduced is an exhibition of adult art for adults.

Ta Ken

Sounds interesting Ken. I might just check it out.

Birdonwire

I always like an open mind.

Please do.

I already I have one or two equally beautiful ( and as always free) expeiernces lined up for my visit to Sin City.

Although I have to admit that the Barbican exhibition may well be beyond even understanding of this poor working class boy

The best way I can describe it is that a friend who attended the opening the other night told me that maybe some of the content was a bit dodgy but at least as a whole most of the exhibition was well hung.
If you know what I mean. Boom Boom,.

Ta Ken

Many exhibitions add the option of carrying a personal audio player, earphones and commentary, which guides one through the work on display. Perhaps 'pairs of boxing gloves' (various colours) would be a useful consideration to collect, as one entered the exhibition ?


I'm a simple Philistine, what would I know about art ?

My friend Deena has a ticket going spare for Saturday's show at the Barbican (£35). I was going to take it myself but can't go now. Anyone interested please email Deena.Omar@tower.ac.uk

Thanks

TC

I'm staying at the Travel Lodge.
Who else is?

Pete

It's that man again.

Author of the new Bob Dylan Basement Tapes book, Sid Griffin at the Green Note in Camden.
Now if only we could have combined the meetup with Sid Griffin's gig............



At Green Note – Camden's vegetarian restaurant and bar, 106 Parkway, London, NW1 7AN – Tel. 020 7485 9899 . ... a short walk from Camden tube station on Thursday 1st November at 7 pm.


Sid Griffin’s new book, "The Million Dollar Bash: Bob Dylan, The Band and The Basement Tapes" ,tells for the first time the inside story of Bob Dylan’s mysterious missing year of 1966-67 and the recording of the innovative and influential music Dylan and his Canadian friends made during the psychedelic summer of ‘67.

For this unique show Sid will read from the book and discuss exactly what happened to Dylan between his motorcycle accident of July ‘66 and the release of his John Wesley Harding album at the end of ‘67.

Starting with an explanation of the cultural changes Dylan ushered in and of the personal stress Dylan was under in ’65-’66 Griffin will then discuss the activities Dylan undertook during his eighteen months of seclusion and explain the changes Dylan went through as transformed himself from the Carnaby Street dandy of ‘66 to his village farmer look of ‘68.
The recording routine used by Dylan and the musicians who became The Band will be explained and Sid will show how this informal method of home recording directly influenced The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and U2 amongst many others.
Sid will also talk about Woodstock, Dylan’s influential manager Albert Grossman, Band producer John Simon, Dylan sidekick Howard Alks Peter Paul & Mary and other influential personalities of the period.

Sid will musically illustrate his talk by performing Dylan songs from that mysterious year, such as This Wheels on Fire, You Ain’t Going Nowhere, I Shall Be Released, The Mighty Quinn and maybe a song from John Wesley Harding such as All Along The Watchtower.
With an informative and intimate talk, readings, some Dylan songs and a Q&A session Sid Griffin’s Basement Tapes promises to have something for everybody!

The Milion Dollar Bash: Bob Dylan, The Band and The Basement Tapes is released September 2007 on the Jawbone Press.

PLEASE NOTE: the venue comprises both seated and standing space. There are a limited number of tables. These are allocated on a first come first served basis, with priority given to diners. If you’d like a table, please ensure you arrive early (doors open 7pm).
NO ENTRY AFTER 9.30pm.