Jonny Ensall

Charlie Phillips is the greatest London photographer you've never heard of – and some of his best works are only just being rediscovered. Time Out meets him and hears his story. 

Sure, going to a festival abroad is great fun, but what if you want an actual holiday out of your trip as well? Maybe you want to sample some local cuisine (and booze) alongside all that cutting-edge music. Perhaps you even want a bit of sightseeing – gasp – to go with all the unique sights you'll encounter a festival? Our advice is to head to the charming, lively Portuguese city of Lisbon: not only can you hit one of its fantastic fests to get your music fix, but you can also soak up loads of culture, art and – yes – local liquor. Keep reading to find out what Lisbon has to offer alongside the festival experience.

Hafta sonunda neler yaptınız?Alexis Taylor Ben bir çocuk partisindeydim. Pencereleri alüminyum folyo ile kaplamışlar ve disko ışıkları almışlar. Böylece gerçek bir disko ortamı yaratmışlar. Ama düşünün, etrafınızda oradan oraya koşuşturan beş-altı yaşında çocuklar var ve Katy Perry şarkıları ile dans ediyorlar… Yetişkinlerle kulüplere gidiyor musunuz peki hâlâ?Joe Goddard Birkaç sene öncesine kıyasla daha sağlıklı yaşamaya çalışıyorum. Ama hâlâ kulüpte iyi bir parça duyduğunuz ve hayatın yaşamaya değer olduğunu düşündüğünüz o anların değerini biliyorum. Geçen ay yayınlanan yeni albümünüz ‘Why Make Sense?’i kaydederken eğlendiniz mi, yoksa ofise gidiyor gibi mi hissettiniz?JG “Modern zamanlarda kayıt yapmak muhteşem!” demeyeceğim, bizde yalan yok. Dönüp dolaşıp, herkes aynı fikri atıyor ortaya: “Haydi, Bahamalar’daki Compass Point Stüdyoları’na gidelim!” Sonra kendimizi bir aylığına Kilburn’de (Londra) bir stüdyoda buluyoruz. Banbury yakınlarındaki bir stüdyoda kayıt yapma nedenimiz de buydu. AT Kayıt sürecimiz pek de Happy Mondays’in Jamaika günleri gibi değildi. Her şeye rağmen muhteşem parçalara imza attığınız bir gerçek. Joe’nun babasının hit parçalarınızı eleştirdiği doğru mu?JG Yeni bir hit parça daha yazmaya ihtiyacımız olup olmadığını sorar bana. Konserlerimizden sonra da performansımızı eleştirdiği oluyor. Kötümser anlar da yok değil albümde. Mesela Alexis’in yazdığı ‘Need You Now’ parçasının sözleri rehinelerin gördüğü muameleyi anlatıyor gibi.AT Parçanın sözleri, te

Sure, going to a festival abroad is great fun, but what if you want an actual holiday out of your trip as well? Maybe you want to sample some local cuisine (and booze) alongside all that cutting-edge music. Perhaps you even want a bit of sightseeing – gasp – to go with all the unique sights you'll encounter a festival? Our advice is to head to the charming, lively Portuguese city of Lisbon: not only can you hit the excellent NOS Alive event to get your music fix, but you can also soak up loads of culture, art and – yes – local liquor. Keep reading to find out what Lisbon has to offer alongside the festival experience.

He’s the stellar chef behind West End hotspot Chiltern Firehouse. He helped drive east London’s ascent to world-class culinary destination with his groundbreaking Bethnal Green restaurant Viajante (soon to reopen in Wapping). He tapped into his roots with Portuguese eatery Taberna Do Mercado, which opened in Spitalfields earlier this year. He’s also got a lovely beard and the twinkliest eyes in the business. He’s globe-trotting gourmand Nuno Mendes and he’s here to tell me – over a traditional Portuguese biafana sandwich – about his year in food. What’s the best meal you’ve eaten this year? ‘One of my old chefs, Sebastian, left the Firehouse to open Mission on Paradise Row in Bethnal Green. I had an amazing meal there. And it was affordable. It’s easy to be casual, but then to also deliver at all levels… Those subtleties. The little touches. It’s a very complete experience.’ And the worst… ‘Frozen peas at my friend’s house.’ How would you describe ‘the Nuno Mendes experience’? ‘Ha! Tasty! And I want it to be informal. Look, if you enjoy success and your restaurant’s full, you must never lose sight of the fact there are tens of thousands of restaurants in London, and someone’s taking the time to come to yours. I think it’s a really important thing to have a sense of gratitude towards your guests.’ All of them? Even the ones who are constantly on their phones? ‘It’s not possible to say to someone: “You can’t use your phone.” People take pictures of your food and, hey: it is

Just to let you know: our city is under threat. Not from aliens, fire, plague, religious nutjobs or rising sea levels (though don’t rule any of those out) but from massive faceless powers. Powers who want to redevelop your local, close your favourite venue, price the struggling families out of your street, spoil a fine view and shit in your garden (if you’ve got a garden. You probably don’t). Annoying, right? And it doesn’t end there. Because if London is under threat, the Londoner is under threat. So that’s you, and it’s your tube driver this morning, your barista right now, your barman after work, your waiter this evening, your band tonight, your DJ after that, and the cabbie who takes you (and whoever you’ve managed to lasso) home. The fear is that ordinary Londoners, all 9 million of us, won’t be able to live here any more, priced out by massive rents and driven out by sheer boredom at the sameyness of our streets. And if we go, everything great goes with us. The art, the music, the food, the drink, the atmosphere, the madness and that thing that makes you go ‘Fuck me! Only in London…’ Once it’s all gone, it will never come back. But all is not lost. Yet. If you love London, you can do something about it. Make your voice heard, sign that petition, join the Facebook group. We’ve found some causes you could get involved with right now. It’s time to save our city.

Birtwistle Outpost is one of those east London venues that does a bit of everything, and feels strangely empty for it. It’s a store, coffee shop, hangout space, café and (come evening) private dining room for a select few guests. But, once you’ve decided the artisanal chopping boards are out of your price range, there’s not much in the way of things to eat for lunch – just cheap but uninspiring butternut squash soup and veggie quiche when we visited (£3 and £3.50 respectively). A quince tart for pudding (also £3.50) was big and bland, with not enough of the sweet, sharp, gooey filling. The coffee was smooth but too milky; the service wide-eyed and awkward. Chef Irene Psoma (formerly of Ottolenghi and Nobu) is clearly saving her best for the small room’s supper clubs (bookable by emailing info@birtwistleoutpost.co.uk, though you’ll need to do it weeks in advance) – and a snaffled spoonful of a rich and bitter chocolate mousse was enough to get us excited. So, lunch was a non-event, but Birtwistle Outpost does seem interesting. It’s a family project, run by architect and furniture-maker Toby, his artist and writer wife Susan and their ’adventurer’ daughter Margot. Dad, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, is a famous composer, and his book’s for sale in the shop. Brother Adam stocks his ceramics there, and other members of the Birtwistle brethren have chipped in too. The whole set-up sounds like the plot of a Wes Anderson movie, which fits just right with Shoreditch’s louche and folksy sty

Please note, Il Cudega has now closed. Time Out Food editors, February 2019. How’s this for a charming story? Luca and Giovanni have been friends since they were eight years old, and now they’ve opened a tiny restaurant and deli in one of London Field’s most unassuming railway arches. A simple place, full of simple pleasures – specifically the best organically-produced cheese, meats and wines from their home district of Lombardy, in Northern Italy. See, I said it was a charming story. And it’s hard to resist the sheer Italian-ness of Il Cudega (it means ‘pork scratching’). The simplicity of the black-and-white decor. The intriguing wine list. The contents of that deli counter, which make your stomach rumble like Pavarotti’s after an ovation-winning aria. We began with mellow prosciutto from Lake Como and indecently wet and wobbly balls of burrata cheese, the sourness of which was offset by piquant slices of black truffle. Slowly we moved on to warm, creamy pumpkin risotto, made with firm little pellets of barley. Lasagne, from the specials menu, was prettily stacked, and all about the dry, intensely meaty ragù. To finish, a little bowl of the best tiramisu we’ve ever tasted. Bitter chocolate, sweet yellow cream and a crunch boozy base – bliss. Il Cudega is a place to drop in for a chat, drink a few glasses, inhale a plate of mixed salumi (a generous heap of meat for £12) and polish off an espresso. Then: mwah, mwah! Kiss Giovanni goodbye and its back to real life.  Though not

London's a brilliant place to be around Christmas, but what's it like for the people who make the magic happen? Jonny Ensall hangs out with the elves to get the skinny on the fat man at Westfield Stratford City. Excuse me a moment while I become my grandad, but I'm not sure about these newfangled Santa's grottos. In my day, you would visit Old Red in a shed in your school's car park, inside which the man who also coached the under-tens football team would hand you a shoddily wrapped plastic sword with a 'ho, ho, ho' and a stroke of his felt beard. But this, I'm forced to admit, is 2015. When grottos are made by Dreamworks and boast iPad games, virtual-reality sleigh rides and production values that would make Secret Cinema want to pack it all in and just watch 'Elf' under a duvet.   Outside Westfield Stratford City you'll find such a grotto. A big one. More of a mansion, in fact. At peak times the elves running the 'Shrek'-themed adventure will host a family every four minutes for up to 12 hours a day. By the end of the grotto's run, over 20,000 London children will have met Santa. But - and this is a massive spoiler - it's not the real Santa. I know this because I'm 30 years old. And also because there are three of them. 'The public are never aware of the huge scam,' says grotto manager Fraser. Two Father Christmases dole out presents in identical rooms, side by side, while a third takes his break. Then they rotate.   'There's a code for swapping a Santa,' says Fraser. 'We

What does data look like? Loads of 1s and 0s floating through the ether? A mass of serpentine cables? A nice-looking cat? The answer, as presented by Somerset House's epically informative Big Bang Data exhibition, is all three. It can be difficult to conceptualise data, especially when we're bombarded with so much of it day-to-day. The immersive and interactive artworks on display here offer it to us in more relatable, tactile, feline forms. But beware, data also has a dark side. Among the dozen or so exhibits - assembled by talented artists and infographic whizkids from the world over - are several reminding us of just how public all your daily updates really are. You could, for example, find your whimsical tweet turned into a massive poster by Thomson & Craighead. The London-based pair are creating artworks out of passing strollers' 140-character brain farts right up until the opening. Or, to see the scale and sheer, unstoppable proliferation of social media, stand a while in front of data visualisation company Tekja's real-time social media map of London, while #London tagged Instagram posts burst like popcorn over the screen.   Ingo Günther And then, of course, there are the cats - pinpointed on Google Earth by Owen Munday when their owners post their feline pics online - in the ominously titled work 'I Know Where Your Cat Lives'.   As we face a future lived in the cloud, this exhibition should help us to understand what that brave new world will look like. There's a co

Standing on the left is against the natural order of things, no matter what TfL thinks, says Jonny Ensall. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that when boarding an escalator, you stand on the right and walk on the bloody left. This is, in fact, one of the simplest and most reassuringly constant rules of London life. What with technology and climate change and London’s seemingly inevitable future as a shiny, skyscraper-packed toytown built entirely for Chinese pension fund managers, we can at least say: Yes, you do stand on the right, and walk on the left. It should be London’s motto: projected on to the National Theatre; carved into Buckingham Palace’s stonework; tattooed on to Boris Johnson’s neck.  Which explains why everyone’s so freaked out that, at Holborn station, TfL is currently trialling a new system. One where commuters stand on BOTH sides of the escalator. That’s the right side AND the left side. If you’re struggling to get your head around this concept, just imagine an escalator that has become blocked by a stag party from Middlesborough, clogging up the whole thing like vomit in a Travelodge sink. It’s basically that.  Why is TfL doing this? To ease congestion, is the claim. The theory being that, by allowing standing on both sides, more passengers will be able to ride at one time. Staff with megaphones have been cheerily explaining this new rule to rush-hour commuters, who’ve been grumpily taking to Twitter to decry it. It’s a bit like changes to travel dur

'Peep Show' is back on our screens tonight (Channel 4, Wednesday, 10pm) but – as this is the last season – we've only a few more pearls of El Dude Brothers wisdom to look forward to. Since 2003 the Croydon boys and their accomplices have reminded us that London is full of pathetic weirdoes, simply trying to make the best of things. A comforting thought. In fact, there have been very many times when they've summed up the awful brilliance of living in the capital. Here are 12 instances when 'Peep Show' had London's number.   1. On flatmates:‘We'll be friends! Like the friends on “Friends”! Who were such good friends they got bored of being friends and started screwing each other.’ – Jez   <img id="e47d5ffc-6524-67e0-fe13-7abdb11ce3cc" data-caption="" data-credit="" data-width-class="" type="image/gif" total="504079" loaded="504079" image_id="102951655" src="http://media.timeout.com/images/102951655/image.jpg" class="photo lazy inline">           2. On romance: 'Lovelife may be a rather grandiose term for staring at women on the bus.' – Mark <img id="e746a385-e0c6-e610-78b6-e17fbfc70f8b" data-caption="" data-credit="" data-width-class="" type="image/jpeg" total="36153" loaded="36153" image_id="102951652" src="http://media.timeout.com/images/102951652/image.jpg" class="photo lazy inline">       3. On ambition:'Please don't shit on my dreams. I don't want shit on my dreams.' – Mark   4. On job opportunities:‘I would literally stab a bab

  A photo posted by fuckoffee (@fuckoffee) on Oct 6, 2014 at 7:23am PDT So, it’s come to this. The managers of Fuckoffee coffee shop in Bermondsey have pissed off the building’s owners and been ordered to bloody well take down the offending arsehole signage, straight-a-cocking-way. The shop posted the letter received from their landlord on their Twitter feed, with the note ‘No humour please, we’re British’. No humour please, we're British. pic.twitter.com/P1U9VhAEho — Fuckoffee (@fuck0ffee) October 21, 2015 This – I reckon – is a shame. Especially as creative swearing feels like a very British pastime – up there with birdwatching or whittling things in sheds. Outside of the football terraces or the fighty streets of Saturday night, inserting dirty words into otherwise clean subject matter is about as fun, and as offensive, as an episode of ‘Countdown’ that goes a bit awry. One where Rachel Riley ends up spelling ‘TITMONGER’, for example. Perhaps the objection arrives on the grounds of general, public-spirited decency? Kids could see the sign. People who don’t appreciate the word ‘fuck’ could see the sign. And then… er… something terrible will happen. Right? Or maybe not? Surely those kids have to know the F-word before they get the joke? Surely those faint-hearted souls who might complain can’t be too unnerved, given that – if we’re being honest – they’re probably the same people tutting over Daily Mail galleries of ‘Towie’ celebs with their cleavage hanging out? And, wh

Lycra-clad berk Jonny Ensall knows he should do better, and invites you to curse his name. Road users of London – sorry. This is a general apology issued by me, a douchebag cyclist, to you, anyone who has to put up with the kind of shit I pull day in day out on London’s streets. You know what I’m talking about: jumping red lights; heedlessly cutting into streams of nervous drivers; hopping up onto the pavement just to get ahead of a couple of Priuses. What’s the bloody point?  You just know that my bike cost loads of money, and weighs less than an iPhone. Which is pointless – of course – because the lock I have to cart around to protect it weighs a tonne. My bespoke cycling jersey with cutting edge reflective technology and built-in LED light is rendered half as effective by the fact I bought it in black. Black! The colour of the nighttime! What must you think when I parade around the office early in the morning, all red-faced and smug like I started the day by getting laid, when I’ve actually just hared it in from Bethnal Green and that’s the real reason why my junk is all sweaty? I could go on. You could probably go on – citing all the reasons you look at blokes (and it is blokes) like me with the kind of derisory grimace usually reserved for former presenters of ‘Top Gear’. We’ve turned the capital’s road network into a daily version of the Pamplona bull run, but with black cab drivers instead of (marginally less irate) cattle. It’s been this way for a year, ever since I p

It can be difficult to feel sorry for the owners of Brick Lane’s Cereal Killer Café – which bore the brunt of an anarchic anti-gentrification protest on Saturday night. But we do. Really. Because, despite the fact they’re helping turn east London into an IRL Pat Sharp’s ‘Fun House’, the brothers who own and operate this independent business are a soft, and kind of rubbish target for a group who claim to oppose ‘communities being ripped apart’. The protest – which involved throwing paint and cereal at the outside of the café, and was attended by activist group Class War – was (according to the Facebook event) directed at ‘Russian oligarchs, Saudi Sheiks, Israeli scumbag property developers, Texan oil-money twats and our own home-grown Eton toffs.’ So why target two guys with beards selling cereal? There are loads of better causes when it comes to protecting London’s soul. For example:   1. The cost of housing The big one, obviously, since it affects who can live in London, and has a knock-on effect on everything from homelessness to mental health to the cost of living. Many swanky new developments are obliged to offer ‘affordable’ housing (usually about 35 percent of flats); but they usually fail to meet that quota. See Shoreditch’s own Bishopsgate Goods Yard development, where the figure’s down to around 10 percent – based on a planning application waved through by City Hall. Want to make a difference? Then exercise your democratic right as part of 2016’s mayoral elections, a

1. Brand ambassador Fair play to anyone who has this job - it's a sweet deal to get paid for using a product particularly well, and in front of other people. I, for example, am a whizz with a roll-on deodorant, and would happily demonstrate the use of the Sure Quantum range for money. But let’s not pretend this position has anything to do with actual diplomacy. Face it, no White House functionary is ever going to interrupt the commander-in-chief with: ‘Mr President, the Jaffa Cakes ambassador needs to speak with you urgently. I think it’s about the whole ‘biscuit’ question.’ 2. Mixologist Once upon a time it was all right to just be called a barman or -woman. It was honest work, keeping weary Londoners supplied with alcohol, or (if you were serious about this drinking business) an agreeable blend of a few different kinds of alcohol. Why, then, has the noble employment of proffering liquor in various easy-swilling forms turned into such an orgy of intellectualised nonsense? Who wants turnip shavings, pickled candyfloss or whale sebum ruining what could otherwise be a perfectly good rum and coke? Mine’s a pint of Carling, mate. And hold the applewood smoke.   3. Artisan It’s a word that suggests a time-served craftsman, working at his bench by flickering candlelight with the dexterity that only comes through decades of hard work and concentration. In London and this Amazon Prime era, however, you’re considered an 'artisan' if you’ve managed to put up a shelf that you didn’t bu

On July 7, 2005, London was hit by four suicide bombs: three on the Underground and one on a bus. Fifty-two people were killed, and 700 more were injured. Today, on the tenth anniversary of the bombings, we're publishing first-hand accounts from people who were profoundly involved. Vicki Hillyard was in the bomber’s carriage on the Piccadilly line train travelling between King’s Cross and Russell Square ‘I was 29 at the time, living in Crouch End and commuting to Holborn where I worked for a publishing house. I was racing to work that day, in fact, because I was on a massive deadline. In the end, I never went back again. ‘There were problems on the Victoria line, so everybody was crowded on to the Piccadilly. I was jammed into the corner by the door, smelling somebody’s armpit. At King’s Cross I could see a seat available, and nobody was taking it – I couldn’t understand why. I decided to push through, and thank God I did, because I had been standing just a metre away from the bomber. The bomb went off 20 seconds later. ‘I had no sense of what it was, but I knew something really bad had happened – obviously. People were flung against windows, poles were bent, windows smashed. I could see, but was choosing not to see. It was surreal, being sat there in a carriage full of smoke and screaming people and wondering: Am I going to get out of here, because soon I won’t be able to breathe? ‘Once the TfL staff thought it was safe enough for us to get on to the tracks they led us out t

  29-year-old east Londoner Thom Feeney launched an IndieGogo crowd-funding campaign yesterday, to help the embattled EU nation of Greece pay off its creditors and get back on its feet.  The target? A cool €1,600,000,000 (that’s 1.6 billion), to be reached within eight days. But the campaign’s already hit €150,000 within 48 hours, with support seeming to grow exponentially for the idea. As Thom puts it: ‘The European Union is home to 503 million people, if we all just chip in a few Euro then we can get Greece sorted and hopefully get them back on track soon. Easy.’  In return for donating, funders receive Greek perks, such as a bottle of ouzo, or a feta and olive salad (608 have already been claimed). So why would a Londoner who – he tells us – hasn’t been to Greece before, decide to lend a helping hand to Athens? And how the hell is this going to work if he reaches the target? We contacted him for the lowdown.   Hey Thom. Have you been to Greece before? ‘I’ve not been to Greece, no. I planned to visit the Greek Islands as an 18-year-old when I started learning Greek. Unfortunately I never managed either. Though I can still recall the Greek for “good morning” and “a taxi please”.’ What on earth will you do if the fund reaches €1.6 billion? Apart from taking your rightful place as a Greek national hero? ‘If it gets to €1.6bn I think I'll try and give Mr Tsipras [the Greek PM] a call, and see what's next. If he can't use the cash then I'll set about helping the Greek people in