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Eating contests: a taste of a truly revolting sport

What better way to celebrate independence from nasty old England than by increasing your chances of bowel cancer exponentially? That’s what contestants in this year’s Fourth of July hot dog eating contest in New York did, as reported by Guy Adams in today’s Independent.
So, with winner Joey Chestnut managing to consume 54 hot dogs and [...]

By Matilda Battersby | Notebook - A selection of Independent views - | Monday, 5 July 2010 at 4:30 pm

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – an obsession

Embarrassed though I am to say it: I really, really like Harry Potter. Having read the books since the age of 11 (I was the first to discover them, honest!) I waited an agonisingly long time for each of the sequels to reach our shelves and for the story to reach its dramatic, if somewhat [...]

By Matilda Battersby | Arts - News, notes and quotes on the Arts world - | Wednesday, 30 June 2010 at 11:08 am

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Online première of Sebastian Peiter’s Guerilla Art documentary

Excusive online première of Sebastian Peiter’s Guerilla Art documentary at Babelgum and below. The 60-minute programme talks about how street art went from subway graffiti to an international fad, and features artists Banksy, Blek Le Rat, Os Gemeos and Invader.

By Matilda Battersby | Arts - News, notes and quotes on the Arts world - | Tuesday, 29 June 2010 at 3:55 pm

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Preview trailer: Gainsbourg

From graphic artist and director Joann Sfar comes an original take on one of France’s greatest mavericks, the illustrious and infamous Serge Gainsbourg.
Gainsbourg is a glimpse at his early life, growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris, and through his successful song-writing years in the 1960s until his death in 1991.
Watch the trailer, below:

By Matilda Battersby | Arts - News, notes and quotes on the Arts world - | Friday, 25 June 2010 at 2:16 pm

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Trinny and Susannah: What They Did Next

Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, famed for grabbing people’s wobbly bits on telly and telling them What Not To Wear, have had a recent resurgence in press interest with articles in national newspapers and an appearance this morning on BBC breakfast, all thanks to a four part just-for-online mockumentary called Trinny and Susannah: What They [...]

By Matilda Battersby | Arts - News, notes and quotes on the Arts world - | Wednesday, 23 June 2010 at 10:05 am

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A chance to see Banksy’s reconstituted meat pets

In case you haven’t yet seen Banksy’s debut film Exit through the gift shop, or if you missed last year’s show at the Bristol Museum, here’s a chance to see one of the notorious guerilla artist’s weirdest creations, his reconconstituted meat pets.

His immaculately constructed animatronic hotdogs, salami and bologna sausages wriggle nervously in glass tanks set to plinky plonk music. It is truly bizarre!

By Matilda Battersby | Arts - News, notes and quotes on the Arts world - | Tuesday, 22 June 2010 at 11:22 am

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Thailand facing rice harvest crisis

The worst drought for two decades is putting Thailand’s rice harvest in jeopardy and could lead to a freeze on exports.

The region, which annually exports an average of 9 million metric tonnes of rice, and consumes as much domestically, is expected to produce as little as 2 million metric tonnes this year.

Hear more from a BBC report below:

By Matilda Battersby | Notebook - A selection of Independent views - | Monday, 21 June 2010 at 4:12 pm

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Deaf raves: club scene caters for hearing impaired

Forget silent raves, deaf raves are sweeping the country.  Hearing impaired Troi “Chinaman” Lee and other deaf DJs are revolutionising a club scene which hadn’t previously catered for people with hearing difficulties.
“London didn’t have any social events for deaf people. You never see any parties or discos and stuff. So I just had an idea,” [...]

By Matilda Battersby | Arts - News, notes and quotes on the Arts world - | Monday, 14 June 2010 at 5:00 pm

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Grisham plays JK at her own game to catch Harry

Fed up with being trumped as a global bestseller by a speccy wizard called Harry, John Grisham has decided to take on JK Rowling at her own game by writing a novel about a thirteen-year-old boy with a special power…(wait for it)… power of attorney.
The master of legal eagle suspense, whose bestselling courtroom dramas include [...]

By Matilda Battersby | Arts - News, notes and quotes on the Arts world - | Thursday, 10 June 2010 at 2:37 pm

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The ice cream man that just keeps on giving

The ice cream weather may have lapsed into a drizzly greyness, but a little rain won’t put off a man who has set himself the sticky mission of giving away half a million ice creams.

Matt Allen, the self-styled “Ice Cream Man,” started out 6-years ago armed with a 1969 Chevrolet Step Van, a video camera and an endless supply of frozen treats, determined to become the most famous ice cream man in the world.

By Matilda Battersby | Arts - News, notes and quotes on the Arts world - | Wednesday, 9 June 2010 at 11:12 am