2nd Annual Strong Island Home Brew Competition – It’s here!

The time has come again people.  This Wednesday 1st Feb is judgement day!  Well, in a beer brewing sense anyway.  If you’re entering please arrive at Little Johnny Russells on Albert Road by 7pm at the latest to get your entries in and registered.  We are starting the judging process at 7.30pm and no later.

But remember you don’t have to enter a brew to attend, we’d love to see as many of you as possible to support the event and after all you’ll be witnessing Portsmouth beer brewing history in the making.  When all entries have been judged the brews are open for anyone to try (providing the brewer doesn’t mind), so there’s an incentive!

We hope to see a high standard of brews this year as we did last year and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for a 2nd annual Strong Island brew winner to be featuring on the pumps at your local in the coming months.  See you all on Wednesday!

‘New York Sketchbook’ Exhibition at Sopranos

Sopranos on Palmerston Road, Southsea, has a new exhibition from Hayling based photographer Harvey Mills titled ‘New York Sketchbook’.

We’ve posted about Harvey more than a few times on Strong Island and his awesome skate photography, and even some of his NYC photographs for his website www.harveymills.com.

As well as being the guy behind the camera for Herbal Skateboards and Skateboarding Photo Magazine, Harvey is an accomplished photographer with 30 years of experience, and his image portfolio presents an eclectic and diverse range of subject matter. Talented chap.

In his own words about the project Harvey says “My challenge was to present an alternative take on vistas and aspects of New York City – a place where, with every corner turned, you stumble across familiar scenes and images. Even first-time visitors feel as if they’ve known the place all of their lives.”

All photographs are tastefully framed and for sale in Sopranos or at www.harveymills.com. And if you’re popping by to check it out you would be bonkers to pass up a bite to eat, especially considering they are running their 2 for £10 lunch menu. Meatballs! Forget about it……

They are always looking for artists to display their work for future exhibitions so get in touch if interested.

La Bossuot’s Coffee Shop

The other day I visited La Bossout’s, a french style coffee house converted from an old traditional British pub on Jubilee Terrace. The previous pub closed it’s doors years ago so it is great to see a long closed building come back to life with a new business. La Bossuot’s serve up the best in ground coffee, with a cosy relaxing atmosphere in a space that still includes many of the pub original features and oak flooring.

You can find out more on Facebook.

Local Food In Local News

The Belle Isle on Osborne Road is a firm favourite with many Strong Islanders including myself. Check out this short article, courtesy of The News, about the exciting upcoming plans this local eaterie has in store for us. Click here for the full article. Looking forward to seeing the new place boys!

Hole in the Wall buys Freehold

I’ve straight pinched this from Charlie over at Southsea Food Social. I’m sure he won’t mind.

“One of my favourite pubs in Portsmouth The Hole in the Wall has been featured in the local rag. And it looks like the couple who run it have bought the freehold! Great news for a great little pub. I would say that all pubs should be like this, but you need the souless generic ones to truly appreciate this gem of an establishment. I wish them all the best.” Read the full NEWS article HERE.

Home Brew Competition – Give Us A Clue

Calling all home brewers!  The judging evening is not too far away now and i’ve been receiving some correspondence from you with positive news, it should be a good evening.  We even have a couple of postal entries from competitors who can’t make it on the night so competition should be strong this year we are hoping!

Here at Strong Island towers we are trying to get an idea of how many competitors will be entering on Weds 1st Feb so if you are planning to enter a brew please can you email me at ben@littlejohnnyrussells.com with the following:

1) Your name

2) Your category (Specified Kit/Unrestricted)

Once I have the names and numbers of entrants i’ll be posting up details of the judging evening including times etc.  Good luck!

Roast Dinners at The belle Isle

For the new year you can now have a new look Sunday roast at The Belle Isle. They are now serving a more traditional roast beef or honey roast chicken with carrot and swede mash, cauliflower cheese, green vegetables, Yorkshire pudding and gravy. The vegetarian option is mushroom, cranberry and walnut wellington. Booking early is recommended to avoid disappointment. You can Belle on 02392 820515. You KNOW it’s gonna taste amazing…

LJRs’ January Wine Sale Begins!

Little Johnny Russells‘ annual January Wine Sale is back with loads of different wines for only £10 each from Sunday to Thursday. A bottle of wine and an open fire sounds pretty good right now…

Enjoying Local Food – Akrams

Hands down one of my favourite food stores in Portsmouth. Having been there for as long as I can remember, Akram’s has always been THE place to go if you need your far eastern ingredients. Ranging from Indian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Jamaican and many other destinations, Akrams is your ticket down the spice trail. I can quite happily spend my time walking up and down the aisles buying items that I don’t recognise but I know will probably blow my head off. Alongside your obligatory pastes, sauces and spices, they also boast an in-house butchers, a veg section and frozen fish. Get yourselves down to Palmerston Road, check it out and immerse yourself in an exotic part of Southsea.

New Years Eve in Southsea

If your stuck for somewhere to go this new years eve, here’s a few suggestions. Click the links below for more information.

Little Johnny Russells – Silent Disco
One Eyed Dog
The Wine Vaults
The Registry – Concrete Music Presents…
The Wedgewood Rooms
The Spinnaker Tower
The Eastney Cellars
The Jolly Sailor

PRIMARY – A Phoneography Exhibition by Strong Island – Call for entries

This coming new year we will be proud to announce our latest exhibition PRIMARY, a Phoneography exhibition by Strong Island and we are even happier to announce that it’s open to you, the readers.

With the continuing increase in impressive camera technology in mobile phones and the ability to alter, tweak, post process and upload the photos to social media networks and websites like Instagram, the popularity of Phoneography has never been greater.

The ‘of the moment’ ability to take a photo at almost any time and any place by most people has really driven the fact that the camera does not make the photographer. By which I mean, you don’t need an expensive camera to take outstanding photos.

Agreed, the quality of the physical image may not stand up to the big guns, but new learnings in composition, style and aesthetic by a new generation of camera users via online media has really driven this popularity, and encourage people to go beyond a ‘quick shot’.

PRIMARY invites you to get out and about around Portsea with your mobile phone camera and take photos of anything and everything based around the three primary colours red, yellow and blue. What you photograph is entirely up to you, but submissions will only be accepted if they stick to the theme.

The call for entires has now begun and the deadline is the 31st of January 2012 with the exhibition being held in March of 2012. Photos can be taken on any mobile phone model and we ask that a maximum of 3 photos per applicant are sent in to primary@strong-island.co.uk.

Please submit along with your photographs your name, photo title, phone model, location of photo on the island and any post process apps you used, if any, to achieve the final shot.

We look forward to seeing all the entries, and the final installation will be something special using every photo submitted in a slightly different fashion from your average photographic exhibition. CLICK HERE TO PRINT YOUR OWN POSTER

Poster by Tristan Savage & Photo by Paul Gonella

It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage