Sometimes they like posh restaurants and sometimes they fall out of taxis: Turnleft is the Kate Moss of travel guides! Wherever they are, they enjoy good friends, fashion, design, architecture, exciting art studios, concept restaurants and music gigs.

Turnleft is a series of insiders’ guides with great tips to the local scene. All the guides are free and edited independently.

THE TURNLEFT SITE

KAREN is more interested in the weather than what to wear, sell by dates than celebrity. KAREN MAGAZINE serves up a delightful dish of the everyday, gently observed and presented as something quite unique. A glossy magazine without the gloss.

And as it says on the cover of this this little piece of reality, priceless!

‘Karen succeeds in weaving its humble subject matter into something poetic, profound, absurd and joyful. One issue of this magazine is more interesting than every issue of every other lifestyle magazine in the world put together.’
David Shrigley from The Observer newspaper’s ‘The best-kept arts secrets in Britain’

‘Karen is in a very English lyric tradition of exalting the unconsidered, from Gray’s Elegy and Wordsworth’s Daffodils to Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads.’ Mary Blume, International Herald Tribune ‘An antidote for the culture of celebrity’.

EMAP Publishing Award Winner Best Lifestyle Fanzine 2005.

KAREN MAGAZINE

Fred Crippen’s Rodger Ramjet. Gone but not forgotten! Gonzo animation in its dearest, rawest form. Made on the cheap, voice over work done in one take, and animation that looked like it was made by a right handed person drawing with their left hand!

I once knew a kids cartoon animator… deceptively dangerous person! He used to animate for Danger Mouse, etc… (Full list I forget now, but at the time I remember being impressed as he reeled off all my childhood favourites).

I don’t know when he had time to animate cartoons cause he used to spend all his waking hours (1.00pm-3am) smoking Benson & Hedges fags, drinking beers and spending the occasional evening in the local strip bars. Yet he produced some of the most wonderful kid’s cartoons the world has ever seen.

I guess that contradiction that was so obvious in what this person should have been like and what he was actually like was something that stuck in my mind, and made me approach kids cartoons in a whole different way!

But now it’s obviously evident that the people who make kids cartoons are not ‘normal’ anyway! Look at Ren & Stimpy, The Simpsons etc… A few examples of kids/adults crossover toons. But if it wasn’t for these deeply interesting individuals kids would be roaming around with a few less smiles and strip bar income would be significantly lower.

This rare footage of Fred Flintsone and Barny Rubble having a quick smoke says it all really don’t it?

So take a hop, skip and a jump over to FORMAT MAG and check out the new style for 2007. For launch of the new style FORMAT also have some great features on Jonathon Mannion, Kinky Form, EBOY and Codak!

CONGRATULATIONS from all at FMCS to Daniel and his team on some great efforts here!

FORMAT MAGAZINE

This new shop is located in the classic Carnaby shopping area in the Mayfair district, where top progressive brands offer the best in global fashion.

The London store will feature artists, photographers and designers from around the world who will contribute cutting-edge designs for men’s and women’s hoodies, tees and hats that Upper Playground has come to be known for, as well as an expanding number of book titles and a house-wares collection.

If you are near the area you can also look forward to Upper Playground converting vacant spaces in and around the Mayfair district into one-time galleries for exhibitions showcasing the same high caliber artwork as featured in the San Francisco and Portland galleries.

UPPER PLAYGROUND

Stirred Up is primarily about culture, food, travel, events and Eurotrash. The originators of the magazine believe that a sense of collective identity has emerged in Europe, yet no pan-European publication exists as the voice of our generation, they aim to fill this gap!

They are liberal and opinionated, serious and humorous, resourceful and vibrant. And this is deeply reflected in the mag. The current issue features photographer Åsa Johannesson, The very useful Country monitor and interesting articles (of which there is a particularly striking and well written one titled ‘Resistance and Revisionism’ about the effects of World War 2 and the civil war in Italy.

The magazine is free in selected venues across London - and copies can be found around Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Paris and Rome.
Readers in other cities have to subscribe or buy it on newsstands.

If you are a commercial or non-profit venue and Stirred Up sounds like a magazine you would like to stock, contact them and they will see how they can get copies delivered to you.

STIRRED UP ONLINE

Just priceless… The way you can turn a page with your mouse! And if you have sound on your computer, the rustle of virtual paper can be heard! Is the medium the message? Aww fuck knows! Anyway MAP Magazine is a really great read, brought to you by Map Publishing and Editor-in-chief Francesca Mora.

You will find tons of inspiring stuff in every issue from art, design to music and interesting interviews with some mighty fine individuals.

MAP MAGAZINE

However this video still serves as a good introduction to a problem that is grossly out of control and, insipid in its intent to grasp your freedoms and enslave your choice, while at the same time keeping you thinking you have a choice.

We are not promoting radical action or alarmist theory; we do however promote education and social awareness. Your choice is after all your choice and you do with it what you will. So it’s up to you to be wise and to know what certain individuals have in store for you, by educating yourself.

Today you are very lucky to be able to view these kinds of videos and listen to free speech! Tomorrow it may be highly possible that you will not have such luxuries.

We did consider placing links to other informational sources on the above topic. However this subject does require that you take a more proactive approach to finding the information yourself. Good luck!

But there are those few totally funny, interesting and well done short [yes, still commercial] films worth taking a closer look at.

Especially if they are so popular in the internet that sites, which were offering the videos, were forced to shut down. That happened with last year’s Berlitz - ‘language for life’ video, directed by ‘Nic&Sune’ - Sune Maroni and Nic Osborne, the guys from MotionBlur.

Nic&Sune are in the top ten of best worldwide TV directors, and almost all of their films become fetish videos of TV loving young people obsessed with the shiny and new.

Also the Internet is blitzed with tv ads from all around the world and we don’t really care who did them, maybe sometimes we get interested in the soundtrack, but there are some really cute websites providing lots of interesting information, video podcasts and directors’ biographies. Check the super nice motionblur.no for example.

There are also websites providing the best and finest TV ads worldwide like ad-awards.com, an independent group who selects the best ads on a monthly basis.

Berlitz at ad-awards

…now what you hear is not a test - I’m rappin to the beat
and me, the groove, and my friends are gonna try to move your feet
see I am Wonder Mike and I’d like to say hello
to the black, to the white, the red, and the brown, the purple and yellow…

…but first I gotta bang bang the boogie to the boogie
say up jump the boogie to the bang bang boogie let’s rock, you dont stop…

RAPPING PAPER