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Two things strike me every time I walk into a sweetshop

1. They all look amazing, Like little treasure troves of

magical colours and products stacked tightly against each other

ready for me to browse.

2. Them shopkeepers seem lonely. Each one just sat in his

shop staring at the door waiting like my dog does each time

i go into a shop

.

I imagine while they are sat there they think about all sorts but

mostly lost loves or customer crushes. Thinking about that woman

who bought some Frazzles and a packet of Extra and never came

back. so they just sit and wait, musing about what might have been

staring at the door in hope she may come back.

.

So in dedication to all those ol' romantic shopkeepers out their

who I have an inkling listen to slow jams anyway heres Soul For

Real with the appropriately named Candy Rain.

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Anyways, on with the review.

My man had no fags, dudes tobacco counter was like a russian

supermarket. Packets of JP special and Rothmans is all he got. No

B&H NO King-skins. I kid u not. Drinks were better with a long fridge

stretching the length of the store. Sweets wise he had it going on.

From Haribos to a fine selection of after dinner chocolates.

Although I'm confused about the bags hanging from the ceiling,

i don't really think they fit in with the other product ranges. He

ain't Clintons, why's he trying to sell gift bags?

A beautiful stoop in Bedford Stuyvesant

New York is up on the Plant Pot Pride as demonstrated above.

Potted plant sellers like Gary know how to shift green and New York

is snapping it up. You know you wanna buy from a florist that

coordinates with his product and no self respecting stoop in Brooklyn

is complete without a variety of greenery. The Old jazzy guy playing

guitar amongst it is just the icing on the cake on what is a fine

representation of Plant Pot Pride stateside.

Lambeth Council have introduced the 'drug detterence

policy' which means that anyone convicted of buying drugs

in the area could get a post-conviction ASBO and their

personal details and the nature of the crime splashed

across a range of media.

Rule breakers were once shackled in stocks and made

to pay by vegetable throwing peasants and spitting kids

but todays equivalent is a walk in the park with maybe

a notice board informing the odd dog walker or a website

notifying the odd civic minded web browser that you are in

fact a "drug tourist" in your leisure time.

Smoking more than baccy in an old East End Den

One year on from London's smoking ban the Museum of

'London' has put together an exhibition looking at the

history of smoking in London Town.

It would seem our very own CTN* fiend Sweetboy would be

nowhere without Sir Walter Raleigh, the man who kicked it

off and got us all hooked. London was the centre of the

tobacco trade from its first introduction to Britain in the

mid 16th century. Elizabethan Explorer Raleigh was a committed

pipe-smoker and popularised the habit of smoking. By 1614

there were 7000 tobacconist’s shops in the London area.

The exhibition is chock full of facts like this, plus a tube

containing one week’s worth of cigarette butts collected

from one square mile in the City of London.

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/

*CTN = Confectionary, Tobacconist, Newsagent

Yo, this is the spot! When your boy sweetboy is

heading back to his south LDN manor after a few too

many Smirnoff Ice’s at Yate’s in Leicester Square

you know he has to stop by this newsstand and pick

up his favourite home time sweet.

.

Man don’t even have to ask anymore. They see me

step through the ticket barriers and as I pull up to them

they reach for the 10 B&H and Poppets (always toffee)

straight away. Now that’s some sweetshop service.

.

Yo, look how organised their shit is. None of that messy

shop shelfery going on here, pure snack filled straight

lines. Now they don’t have much space to get it wrong

so these guys get big points for being on point.

. 

A professional sweetshop deserves a Pro slowjam. So

I’m teaming them with Midnight Star’s Slowjam. Firstly

coz know one did a Pro stageshow like thse guys and

secondly they really sum up Sweetshops & Slowjams

with the lyrics and especially the chorus line “play

another slowjam, this time make it sweet.”

Not particulary old, Not particulary new but both particulary good.

Each at either end of the music video style spectrum. Rowdy going

for that simplistic white room look and Worthless going for a high

concept Vid with great art direction.

Who's laughing now? According to BBC News Pound shops

are the credit crunch winners. With M&S issuing a profit

warning and John Lewis reporting losses 8 out of 9 weeks

and with growing concerns over price for fuel, food and

mortgages shoppers are after some knockdown pricing.

Although Pound Shops are doing alright now there is always

the chance of being undercut. More and more 99p stores are

popping up all over our high-streets and them city boys are

now forecasting that a 90-99p pricing war maybe on the cards

for Pound Shops all over the country.

Introducing one of the most unlikely pairs since pop idol

losers Liberty X teamed up with Rev Run. Found waiting

for their buddy outside a NY subway these 2 were all over

each other. The little Toy Poodle had little pink bows tied

into his knotty hair, presumably by her semi hobo master.

Blogtanian thinks maybe the master should spend more time

in the salon. There's nothing worse than a pooch out styling

the owner. Although pink bows maybe out of the equation

Blogtanain suggests he sews those shipwrecked cut offs up.

So this is the book/magazine review section and we're

starting off with the SF based Hamburger Eyes, a tri-annual

collection of black and white photo's from around the world

and around the way. Featuring snaps from immigrant workers

to punk kids to family snapshots to intimate portraits to

anything you might see on your daily travels.

.

In the words of HE it's a "pictorial history of both the unseen

and iconic moments of everyday life".

.

Its a mesmorising glance into life with each issue entitled "The

Continuing Story Of Life On Earth", its a real toilet treat and

scores big on The Bog Standard Review Section with 5 wipes

out of 5.

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see more and learn more at www.burgerworldchronicles.com

Wade through the shite available on this weekend

street and you might see something real.

Queens, New York. Forget Pimp My Ride, this group of

younga's don't need Westwood to spur them on.

Introducing the Boom Box Bike. Building these sick

contraptions may be common practise back in Trinidad

and Tobago, where many of the kids who started the

Queens phenomenum originate from. However, the

bikes are attracting a lot of attention in NY, so much

so that film makers Nicholas Randall and Joe Stevens

have produced 'Made in Queens' a 10 minute short

on the story behind it all. The film was screened for

the first time in the UK at Edinburgh Festival last week.

Here's to summer 2008's accidental eco-warrior's and

their portable party machines.

www.madeinqueensfilm.com

just because your busy saving the world with your

pedal power it don't mean you can't do it looking

good. It also works out as a pretty good nut shield

when that backward cycling thing don't work out.

A big sweetshop deserves a big slowjam and it

don't get much bigger than Boyz 2 Men. My man Raja

keeps me content with easy conversation when i want it

and minimal chat when i don't. A true sign of a great

shopkeeper.

.

In terms of product, Raja's got it all. From a rotating shelf

that sells anything from needles and thread to nail clippers

to a wide selection of fruit, milk and fizzy based drinks. Look

at him, he can barely fit into his shop with all the product

range. He scores big on sweets with extra props going out

to his eye on the U.S market with Hersheys and Reeces.

.

Final score is just short of full marks, he gets marked down for

his counter reading material. You naughty boy Raja, no body

likes buying their loo roll from someone reading about kinky

secrets

Pictures & Text from Grobisce-Society, Politics and Mass Graves

Janez Črnej was one of the first people in Slovenia to speak out

about mass graves. He was on the health board in the town of

Celje, and kept hearing reports of high nitrate levels. This led

him to investigate, and found huge quantities of human

remains adjacent to the town reservoir.

Visiting the graves of 'enemies and traitors' was forbidden by the

communist government, so many have crude markings showing

their locations, made in a hurry by grieving relatives.

.

There are over 580 mass graves in Slovenia. Why are they there,

and who is buried in them? What effect do they have on the people

of Slovenia?

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A year of hard work, over 1500 photos, archive material and 50

hours of original interviews with prominent political and

historical figures in Slovenian society have been honed into a

book, It tells the story of mass killings in 1945-1946 and

explores the lies and mythology that surround them.

.

Grobisce Society, Politics and Mass Graves is available from Ben

Freemans website

.

www.ben-freeman.com

On one hand you got traditional artists, milking the free drinks

circuit or even worse the stenciling street artists, all living on

a whim out of mum and dads pockets,inhabiting subsidised

space in East London and exhibiting maybe a couple of times a

year in some mock crack alley gallery. On the other you got

a dude from Plumstead putting in work without canapes who

exhibits new material daily at the toughest gallery in the world,

a London High Street.

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Let me tell you, stood in a gallery staring at some second rate

painting up on the wall you ain't gonna get people taking the

piss excitedly like you would if you saw some kid on your local

high street with a crap fade with patterned cut ins.

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The viewing public on road aren't a forgiving lot so if your

gonna tackle the everyday art market you gotta be on point.

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So big up Togzie the everyday artist and the latest entrant into

the Fly Files.

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You wanna old school Trefoil, a classic Swoosh, some Bobby

Brown cut-ins or one of his famous freestyles then check

Togzie out at myspace.com/togzie

Video Music Box just celebrated their 25 year anniversary.

Do the math and you will see that's 5 years older than YO

MTV Raps, the same YO MTV Raps that gets all the props and

kids running round in retro YO tee's talking about how YO was

the door opener for all Hip Hop in the mainstream.

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Created in 1984 by Ralph McDaniels, VMB was the home of Hip

Hop videos and the 1st to get behind and play Rap videos until

MTV came along with their big bank balance and convinced

everyone they came up with the concept.

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So big up VMB, the true pioneers in music videos and Hip Hop on

TV. In celebration heres an appropriately named VMB banger feat

a young Jay Z before he went superstar on us.

This right here ticks all the boxes in the world of Blogtanian.

The hero beagle Snoopy features profiling in his convertable

with a tuff and true slogan that can't be beat. This wouldn't

be a Blogtanian post withouta little dog related trivia, so here

goes with Snoopy related info.

.

Snoopy loves root beer and pizza, hates coconut candy, gets

claustrophobia in tall weeds, and is deathly afraid of icicles

dangling over his doghouse. One of his hobbies is reading

Leo Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace at the rate of "a word

a day". Snoopy also has the uncanny ability to play fetch with

soap bubbles, and can hear someone eating marshmallows or

cookies at a distance, or even peeling a banana.

.

Wikipedia is truly amazing!

Every saturday we're bringing you music videos that

should be in your life. Sometimes old and sometimes

new. We ain't genre specific here so stay tuned for some

musical variety.

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To get things started we're taking you back to a time

when British wasn't a word in the Hip Hop vocabulary with

two bands that stood up on these shores and changed

everything. Forefathers and mothers of what we got going

on now and the best possible way to set the tone for

music video saturdays. Be Proud to be blighty and Enjoy!

Artists Susannah Edwards and Luke Stephenson have collaborated

with Tatty Devine in a new exhibiition that opens today.

There are some great pictures from the budgie beauty contest which

was held in East End church All Saints last month. The contest was a

recreation of one which happened in 1959 which was judged by

Jayne Mansfield. 

On the night Boy Budgie Bobby came out on top. Speculation is now

rife that Bobby will be running club nights at The Macbeth for bird

loving trendies, admission will be free and but you will have to pay

for the nuts.

Tatty Devine, 236 Brick Lane, London. E2 7EB.

The exhibition runs from 27th June to 17th August at Tatty Devine

http://www.tattydevine.com/

http://susannaedwards.com/