Porridge Cafe, Erotic Poetry, threatening yet seductive music and standing up to stubborn people like me

EAT: So, you may have heard about the Porridge Cafe that’s just opened in Shoreditch (where else?) It’s a one month pop up (now about one week in) and I went along for Skint London for some oat-y goodness.

My 94-year-old Grandma has porridge every single day. She’s the Queen of Porridge. Therefore, I like to think of myself as the Princess of Porridge: partly because of the wonderful alliteration, and because it’s an absurd title to bestow upon oneself. Anyway – I’m a porridge fan, so I was intrigued to see what the Porridge Cafe was like.

So the way the cafe works is on a rotating menu, with different porridge available each day (both sweet and savoury options). I think this is a bit of a shame – I was expecting something like Shakeaway, where you select your grain, select your milk and then select your toppings. Doesn’t work like that, but that’s me being fussy, just a recommendation for the cafe if they end up opening full-time!

The cafe is small, with limited seating, so I guess they’re looking for office workers taking their breakfast away rather than a full cafe experience. They also serve coffee and tea (although I was given a lot of free prosecco when I went… who knew prosecco and porridge went so well together, eh?)

So, I went for the cherry and white chocolate porridge (VERY yummy, perfect for a sweet tooth), pomegranate and orange porridge (zingy and the pomegranate added a nice change in texture), gluten-free apple and hazelnut (lovely gluten-free option, flavours weren’t that strong though) and chorizo (this is basically like quinoa with spicy meat, not porridge). They have lots of different milks (soy, skimmed, full fat, coconut), different grains and, as you can tell, different toppings.

Basically: it’s a nice idea and the porridge was good. I don’t think it has huge amounts of staying power, but that’s simply due to the public’s appetite for paying for special porridge and the saturation of these kinds of ‘themed’ food cafes in London these days. If you’re in Shoreditch, absolutely give it a try to make sure you visit while you can.

SEE: I went to an erotic poetry evening where a host of naked men, women, all ages, all races, all sexual orientations all got up on stage and talked about fucking. And emotions. And everything in between. But before you read on: it’s the kind of night where 50 Shades of Grey is mentioned in a wholly sarcastic way for being vanilla (sorry old women/people with dull sex lives).

The night is called ‘Velvet Tongue’ and it’s billed as an ‘erotic open mic soiree’. It’s run by Ernesto Sarezale – someone I’ve seen at a few events (another poetry evening called Naked Boys Reading – there’s a theme with Ernesto as you can see!). The poets are, for the most part, gay men – so expect lots of beautiful descriptions of sphincters and guy-on-guy action. However: there is plenty for everyone to enjoy. One amazing women (grey hair, corset, at least 50 years old) did a piece about cyber sex: getting off with a sex toy, desperately trying to beat the man on the screen to orgasm, but failing due to her cat deciding to get involved and the man being able to cum before she could.

Yes, it sounds crude. Sex usually is. But the people who get up on stage and talk about intercourse, the state of sex in 2015 and unrequited love and lust are talented. They have guts. One guy wrote a poem following the arrest of the naked rambler, stripping before he read the poem. The balls (no pun intended) it must take to get up on stage and, either literally or metaphorically, bare yourself I envy greatly.

The crowd was great. If you’re open-minded, liberal and up for a laugh, then I’d highly recommend Velvet Tongue. Well – Ernesto announced that this would be the last one he did, although the uproar that followed makes me think the erotic open mic poetry night will continue in some way or another. It’s a great night, full of professional and completely amateur performers, giving people the opportunity to completely be themselves. If you want to talk, in great detail, about exactly what your last orgasm felt like: this is the place to do it. (C’mon. You know you want to).

LISTEN: The title music for House of Cards puts me into a trance. I realised last year that I really love music which is threatening. Soft, classical but threatening. There’s something quite sexy about it. Honestly, songs I associate with seduction all have something threatening about them. So, here’s a list of delightfully threatening songs that potential suitors can woo me with.  Again, I must reiterate that I honestly don’t believe I don’t have any deep-set psychological problems. Enjoy.

I promise I don’t have any deep-set psychological issues, although I’m well aware you won’t believe me.

LOVE (& FRIENDSHIP): Every single one of male and female friends challenges me. Every  one. In fact, that’s what makes them my best friends. If people don’t have the guts to tell it straight, I usually don’t have the time for them. Truth telling is far preferable to whispering or silence.

Everyone always bangs on about how it’s not possible to be friends with the opposite sex. I don’t believe that to be true. At all. Some of my best friends are male, many of them I’ve been close friends with for coming up 10 years or more.

The interesting thing is that every one of my friends has attractive qualities. As, I’m sure, do yours. I wouldn’t be friends with them if they didn’t have qualities which I admire. Both my male and female friends are wonderful people. But do you know what they all have in common? They stand up: to me, for themselves, for what they believe in, and I don’t want to jump into bed with any of them.

My friend Jude is a liberal, like me. He always challenges my point of view, the few times he doesn’t agree with me. He ALWAYS calls me on my shit. Sam bites her tongue will usually just tell me straight when I ask for advice or if I’m being purposefully difficult. Olly is challenging in that he just totally ignores me when I’m trying to make a point. It’s just as effective as arguing back, bless him. Ryan always point-blank calls me out when I need it. Fabiola is as feisty as I am and has no issue putting across her point of view, especially when it differs from mine. Nick deals with me tactfully before just laughing off how ridiculous I’m being. Basically: my good friends do not roll over. And I love them for that.

^how I want my friends to react when I start going off on one.

The most attractive qualities in a person, so far as I’m concerned, is someone who is resolute in their beliefs. An intelligent person will have strong beliefs but will be open to changing them if new information comes their way. My friends are all intelligent people. Who have a go at me if I need someone to have a go at me.  Who stand by me when they think it’s right to do so. Doesn’t matter if they’re male or female, or if we’ve been friends for a few years of for decades.

Creepy seductive music aside, having something you believe in and not being afraid to express those beliefs is the easiest way to get my attention and for me to like you. I don’t dislike people without a backbone or without beliefs. But it’s far harder to respect them. And if you don’t agree with me? Tell me. The more you admire my declaration, the more likely it is that we’d be friends. Or more. Rambling over.

Boqueria tapas, #LSELitFest, Cruel Intentions and putting yourself first

EAT: Ohhh tapas. Pretty much all food should be served as tapas. I am obsessed with tapas at the moment (partially because I recently got into olives), so I’ve been doing the tapas rounds. This includes French tapas at Blanchette (review coming soon) as well as the more traditional Spanish/Mediterranean fare. And I officially have a favourite (well, in London anyway): Boqueria.

Boqueria has more than one location in London, but I’ve only eaten in their Battersea branch. The restaurant is in a good location and is lovely inside. The lighting is flattering and cosy, the tables close enough so that there’s a buzzing atmosphere but not so close you’re sat on another person’s lap, and there’s a spacious bar area as well as the (I warn you: small) dining space. So book in advance!

The menu is BIG. And, firstly, for a tapas place in London very reasonably priced. And if the thought of ordering 6 dished all priced at around £7 makes you sweat a little, the portions are VERY generous. Far better than anywhere else I’ve been, either in England or Spain! A bottle of wine will set you back about £20 – their house rose is perfect; a lot of the dishes are strong in flavour or quite salty (as they should be), and it’s really refreshing.

So, a brief description of the dishes we had. We went for olives (obviously) and bread with aioli (the bread is lightly toasted and crusty – the home-made aioli is DELICIOUS!). We had the chorizo with cider (beautiful: the meat is soaked in cider, works SO well) and ham and chicken croquettes (crispy on the outside, fluffy and tasty on the inside).

The patatas bravas (above) is great – the sauce is spicy but easy to eat and the plate comes loooaded with potato. Absolutely worth the £4.50! The padron peppers are essential – covered in rock salt and anyone I’ve ever taken to Boqueria absolutely adores them. The salt cod fritters also come with the yummy aioli and they’re light, salty and also wonderful. As you can tell, I’m a massive fan of Boqueria… and I haven’t even got onto dessert yet!

Get. The. Churros. Churros are fried dough pasty, dusted in sugar and accompanied by a thick hot chocolate. It’s £5 for 4 big piece of churros and the chocolate they come with is probably full of calories, but WHATEVER. If you look at their menu online it’s not actually up to date, so they actually have the churros on offer as well as loads of other yummy desserts and savoury stuff.

It won’t surprise you to hear I bloody love Boqueria. It’s officially my go-to place for dates, meals with friends and I may even go crazy and take my nan there when she visits me in London. But seriously – take a date. They’ll think you’re so in the know and the whole food sharing thing never fails.

SEE:  At the moment, #LSELitFest is in full swing. It’s a whole host of lectures and discussions about a wide variety of subjects. I went to a lecture on Digital Personhood and Identity. A blog post which neatly summarises what was covered in the lecture can be found here.

The talk was a mixture of research and reflection, each exploring what affect our digital landscape and our digital lives have on the foundations of our identity. However, it actually turned into more of a discussion about how the data we offer up online shapes our identity, how digital companies treat us and a lot of discussion around privacy and control.

I work in social media and at work I’m surrounded by the data team. I’m used to people saying brands and companies using their data are ‘evil’ and it’s ‘wrong’. Sometimes, it absolutely is. However, other times it’s used to make your life easier and draw your attention to products which should genuinely be of interest to you. People seem to forget that if the service you’re using is free, then you are the product being sold. Or, more specifically, your data.

Anyway, I think that because I’m younger and I work in an industry which relies on data collection, I obviously found the way the speakers considered privacy interesting. But, there was a particularly interesting point raised in the talks which I just wanted to throw out there.

Firstly, there was a very interesting way one of the speakers described how the internet and technology is good and aids us, and also neatly pinpointed the moment at which technology becomes troubling. At first, technology and digital companies, assisted our decision-making. We can ask Google the quickest way to get somewhere, but we still have the fee will to take another course. We can Google the best restaurants in London: but where we sit down and eat is down to us to decide. Apps like Tinder give us options regarding people to date, but we get to decide who we like and who we don’t. (See advert below for an example).

Then, technology went from making our lives and decisions easier (‘Assisted Decision Making’ ) to ‘Supplementary Decision Making’. We now have apps which monitor how far we run – they congratulate us and say we’ve made the right decision when we run a long way, and encourage us to continue to run. They tell us we’ve not done a good thing when we don’t run. Technology that used to assist us now doesn’t just offer us options and an easier way to do things, but it tells us how we should be doing things. However, we still have the option to not be swayed and to make our own choices, despite those choices being somewhat influenced by an app, an algorithm, or something else. (See for an advert for an example).

The final stage is the one which science fiction thrives upon. When technology is out of control due to us placing our faith, and our decision making, completely in the hands of technology.  This is known as ‘Autonomous Decision Making’ – where we give over the decision making to technology and by doing so wash our hands of responsibility. Driverless cars are the first step in this direction. Which is why people are concerned about driverless cars: if humans are no longer responsible, if humans do not have an option to change the course of things and make decisions, then what? (Scary cars below).

Anyway.  One of the speakers covered all that in less than five minutes, but it really made everything fall into place for me. Sitting in the lecture at LSE I realise just how much I bloody love learning. I miss leaving a lecture theatre and discussing what we’d heard, putting forward our points of view on the subject and then going to learn more. As a result, I’ll not only be going to waaaay more free lectures at LSE, but I’ve purchased a number of books about subjects I want to know more about.

LISTEN: Baby, baby, baby I don’t want to, ever give, you the wrong idea.

LOVE: Thank you to the ever marvellous Amanda Palmer for drawing this to my attention. I know a number of people who feel that only someone else can make them happy. I’ve always maintained you should be happy and confident with yourself – then, when someone falls for you, they’re falling for the real you.

“I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not” – Kurt Cobain. A favourite quote of mine.