The Copenhagen Post

I'm back from another great trip to Copenhagen and I wanted to offload a couple of recommendations before I forget...

An area I got explore a bit more than usual is Nørrebro. It is a bit like Shoreditch; ethnically mixed with some very posh bars and shops and lots of hipster families milling around.

• Elmegade is the best area to have a walk around. Here you can find the Laundromat Cafe, a nice bar/cafe/restaurants full of secondhand books which still has its original laundromat (surely the most expensive place to do your washing in Copenhagen?) and Osborne's; a down to earth, Irish basement pub where you can smoke.

• Temple Bar on Nørrebrogade is another Irish owned place that tolerates smoking. It also has lots of space, great furniture and big windows for people watching.

• The Danish Design Museum is great for adding to your wishlist of classic Danish design.

• The HAY shop is great for adding to your wishlist of modern Danish design.

My accomplice enjoying some øl at Temple Bar.

Danish Design Museum - my spiritual home

HAY Shop - My spiritual working-week crashpad

• Nørgaard paa Strøget is not only full of very desirable clothes, but it has a great heritage. My mother can remember buying their famous striped thermal tops in the 70s (and I've been lucky enough to inherit them!)

The cardigan and pinafore of dreams!

More soon.

Gay Paree

Here are some of my favourite pictures from the rest of the time in Paris.

Oh, and my two new bar recommendations for Paris are La Patache and La Plage near Parc de La Villette (which seems to have left no trace on the internet).

Pitchfork Music Festival, Paris

This weekend we went to Pitchfork's first European music festival at Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris.

My thoughts are:

• Wild Beasts were AMAZING. As my other half said, they have come an incredible way since we saw them at Joe's Pub in New York in 2009.
• Jens Lekman is much better live than on record.  He is also very funny and has a good song about stalking Kirsten Dunst through the nightclubs of Gothenberg.
• Fucked Up were incredibly energetic and entertaining. With Aphex Twin they go on my 'I always thought I should like this but maybe now's the time to start' list.
• I still really dislike Bon Iver (not great for me as he curated the second day).
• As a festival it felt a bit like a dress rehearsal for what will probably be a huge and well publicised event next year.  The venue was great; with good sound and a cheap hotel just over the canal, but due to some INSANITY the bars did not serve any spirits at all.  I mean, c'mon.  Also, the only food inside was hot dogs.  Oh the irony of being in the food capital of Europe with access to only hotdogs for ten hours.

Club Silencio, Paris

We went to Paris this weekend with a bit of a mission to get into Silencio, the new private members' club designed by David Lynch. Expectations of succeeding were low, someone's well connected diplomat friend has failed three times and I don't think I've ever successfully been 'picked' at a club before. But surprisingly, just as we'd given up, the middle aged Parisian picker caught caught my eye.

Brilliantly, once you've been through the meat market/beauty parade entry, there is no cover charge (unlike Social Club next door which is 15 euros...) and the staff are incredibly un-uptight. Our group was dancing on a stage to Madness and taking an awful lot of photos and no one batted an eyelid. The music started off very cool and then turned into the kind of playlist you might find in a local indie club in Croydon or Southend and the tiny dance floor was full of people having an un-self conscious good time.




The interior even has its own forest and the furniture is really lovely (you may have seen it mentioned on David Lynch's twitter feed). The overall effect is something like being in a mid-century modern gold bar. Apart from the staircase down from street, which is dark, hums and had a couple of listless girls sat on it alone when we went down, isn't like being in a Lynch film or club scene. No nudity or dwarves for one thing. I understand that the screening room has Red Room-esque curtains when it isn't the dance floor (see this great teaser article from Diane) which it would be great to see. Actually, I'd love to see the whole place when it is in artist/member mode... one day...