Strong Island

Signature Clothing Sale

Louise — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:08:07 +0000

Its the last few days to grab a bargain from local designers Signature Clothing. Im pretty passionate about supporting grass roots creative business, without it choice is narrowed to large mainstream fashion outlets and mass produced clothing. Go check these guys out.

Win a Strong Island T-Shirt – And the winner is……Mutton Geoff.

Tristan Savage — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:10:42 +0000

Well, it’s actually Lisa, but as the competition tides turned when everyone either guessed correctly or just copied what the last person said we changed the rules slightly. So to keep things more interesting, and seeing as naming a Seagull is much more fun we decided to take the winning pick from the obscure to the sublime responses from our readers.

Some classics for sure, and some randoms too. I’ve no related thoughts on why you would call a Seagull ‘Mutton Geoff’, but it made us laugh. So congratulations to Lisa. Email me the address you would like the tee sent too and I’ll post it out to you.

Oh, and hey, why don’t we send out some stickers and badges to the rest of the ‘contenders’ for getting involved with the comments. We’re nice like that and we appreciate your input to Strong Island.

Send your addresses to tristan@strong-island.co.uk. No cheeky cheaters…

The Southsea Alternative Choir – Charity Single

Stuart Barker — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:00:36 +0000

The Southsea Alternative Choir had a very successful Christmas, raising just under £1,500 for Samuel’s Fund, a local cerebral palsy charity. With Christmas 2012 ten months away, the local octet already intend to up the ante by releasing their own version of The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’, which proved a highlight of the band’s set of indie/alt rock classics, which also included covers of tracks by David Bowie, Brian Wilson, Primal Scream, Bob Dylan, Blur and The Band.

The Southsea Alternative Choir have launched a Fairytale of New York website, which they will embellish as the year goes on. The choir is led by Southsea photographer Stuart Scott and also features the talents of Adam Collier; former Bluesky Research trio Charlie Waddington, Sam Richards and Matt Gill; former Kid Idiot duo Sam Davidson and Ashley Till; and former Ricky singer Jim Lines.

The Southsea Alternative Choir will record ‘Fairytale of New York’ later in the year, but in the meantime you can see the band performing the track outside The Belle Isle, mid-way through an epic six-hour session of drinking and busking that culminated in the band gate-crashing Little Johnny Russell’s one Saturday in December.

Strong Island Homebrew 2012 – The Results

Paul Gonella — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:47:18 +0000

Wednesday night saw the tasting and judging for our second annual homebrew competition. Once the golfers had departed for the next hole the judges got cracking going through the 14 different entries. Due to there being so many entries this year plus our first lagers and ciders the field was split in to beers/ales and ciders/lagers with the top three winning awards.

The beers category began with last year’s best in show brew re-entered. This year it had been slightly modified and changed. Island Hopper you might remember being brewed by Irving & Co. Brewers and sold as Strong Island Hopper around Portsmouth early last summer. A number of other beers from local teams and from as far as Essex entered beers and it was a tough call to pick a winer from all the quality entries.

The competitions first lagers were tried at the start of the second category judging, with the rosemary version going down a storm. Fragrant and tasty. The ciders were entered by lots of teams and ranging in different potency and taste.

The final results are shown below:

Category Cider/Lager
- 1st: Milton Pride (Cider)
- 2nd: Tucker B’s Rosemary (Lager)
- 3rd: Ginsters Paradise (Cider)

Category Beer
- 1st: Dry Dock No. 1
- 2nd: Elder Tail
- 3rd: Dark Matter

The Best in Show award went to Dry Dock No. 1 which will be brewed by Irving & Co. Brewers ready for sale in Portsmouth around May. The winner was very highly regarded and is sure to go down a storm on those early summer days. Looking forward to it!

Strong Island would like to thank the judges for their hard work…the teams for entering and Little Johnny Russells for hosting the event. Cheers!

Art On The Streets – A Bit Of Culture

My Dog Sighs — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:38:13 +0000

I’ve been putting a piece of art on the streets of Porstmouth every Friday for close to ten years now as part of my Free Art friday project and this week I was invited by the BBC Culture show to be featured in a film about my project. ‘Dropping’ my art is normally a very solitary occupation but after a day’s filming on my studio I went up to that there London town where a massive film crew (with secret cameras and directors and runners and everything!!) followed me and two other free art artists round dropping work and jumped on anyone who dared pick the pieces up. All very exciting!

The feature will be aired on the 10th February, 7pm, BBC2

Strong Island Calendar – January 2013 contributions now welcome!

Stuart Barker — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:27:31 +0000

I’m quite excited to announce that this December Strong Island will be launching our 2013 calendar. I know you may wonder why we are being so organised announcing it in January 2012 but we are planning to collate the calendar over the year.

We are now accepting your contributions for the January 2013 page. The ONLY rule is there must be a link of some sort to the local area. You can send your images to calendar@strongisland.co.uk.

Originally we were going to run this as a photography competition asking people to send in photo’s from Portsmouth and Southsea area taken during the previous month. We then decided we’d like to open it up to other diverse art forms such as graphic design, illustration.

For Januarys contributions there is no theme but it’d be nice to see some photo’s taken during New Years Eve/Day. If you have any questions please email us at calendar@strong-island.co.uk.

Keep an eye out on the website as more information about the calendar will be published over the year.

The Wedgewood Rooms Book

Paul Gonella — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:21:01 +0000

Back in the summer at the University of Portsmouth graduate show local photographer Katie Anderson had on show her book documenting Southsea’s The Wedgewood Rooms. The book is made up of different sections that all form a picture of what goes on behind the scenes, on the stage and the people that make it happen. The book also covers the history of the venue, even down to the cover being made up of all the acts that have performed there.

I contacted Katie to find out if the book was ever released (would love a copy) but sadly at the moment Katie is still looking for a publisher and/or funding. If anyone out there is interested in maybe making this book available in any way you can contact Katie at www.katieandersonphotos.com.

Call for Artists submissions: Say What You See

Louise — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:41:50 +0000

Aspex Gallery have launched a new exhibition ‘Say What You See’ and are looking for participants.

The show will begin with one piece and the exhibition will grow as an additional work is added each week.

If you are an artist living within a 60minute journey of Portsmouth and you feel that a work of yours communicates in some way, with other works on display then please submit an image of the work (jpeg) and a brief explanation (up to 200 words) to saywhatyousee@aspex.org.uk

Find the blog here.

At Sea, Joanne Hummel-Newell

Portsmouth Film Society Presents ‘The Skin I Live In’

Paul Gonella — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:11:48 +0000

Tomorrow night (Wednesday 7:30pm) Portsmouth Film Society presents ‘The Skin I Live In’ by Pedro Almodóvar. Almodóvar’s latest film is a bizarre and stylish thriller and will be shown at Boathouse No 6 Cinema at the Royal Naval Dockyard.

Ever since his wife was burned in a car crash, Dr. Robert Ledgard, (Antonio Banderas) an eminent plastic surgeon, has been interested in creating a new skin with which he could have saved her. After twelve years, he manages to cultivate a skin that is a real shield against every assault. In addition to years of study and experimentation, Robert needed three more things: no scruples, an accomplice and a human guinea pig.

“The Skin I Live In feels unlike any other Almodovar film – a quasi-horror exercise that’s improbably august and elegant. Yet it’s also uncannily familiar – an Almodovar film to the hilt.” (Jonathon Romney, The Independent 28. Aug. 2011)

With an opening talk by Dr Deborah Shaw, Film Studies lecturer at the University of Portsmouth.

Kindly supported by the School of Creative Arts Film and Media, Portsmouth University. Entry is free for SCAFM students.

New Issue of Mayhem Magazine Now Out

Paul Gonella — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:30:09 +0000

Portsmouth’s own Mayhem Magazine‘s latest issue has just been released. This issue gears up for St. Valentine’s Day and has interviews with Keira Knightley, Kaiser Chiefs and is full of lifestyle articles. The magazine is available free around many bars and shops all over the city so keep your eyes open and grab a copy.