Pretty Shitty City

Swansea’s annual underground & politically charged film festival is just around the corner.

With a program of events including short movies, radical documentaries, music videos and animation, the festival hosted by Undercurrents reveals truly underground and challenging films that shouldn’t be missed.

“Friday 30th November @ Monkey Cafe
Undercurrents Beyond TV Festival kicks off in style with a party at Monkey to celebrate the launch of their new surf flick On the Push.
Featuring music from;
The Savage Jazz http://www.thesavagejazz.com/
and Kali Mist http://profile.myspace.com/kalimist05

Saturday and Sunday 1st and 2nd December
Follow it up with radical, thought-provoking, funny, shocking indy films at the Taliesin.

Check out the Website for a full program of events: http://www.beyondtvfestival.info/.

Thanks to Dan Penman for supplying the next banner for Pretty Shitty City. The photo is of Swansea’s infamous bridge that now sits redundantly on the cycle path along Mumbles Road.

Skating (or cycling) through the bridge reminds me of a level in ‘Mario Kart Double Dash!!‘ …pity you can’t race up the sides and lob bananas at people.

Dan is an amateur photographer, currently experimenting with Lomography and studying Art & Design in Swansea, you can see some more of his photos on his flickr page Polygon Window; or get in touch directly polygon-window@hotmail.com.

I spotted a raft of minions setting up the Earth From The Air installation outside the National Waterfront Museum yesterday, which reminded me that the exhibition will be opening this Saturday.

Earth From The Air is a travelling exhibition featuring the work of the French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. It’s a collection of large-scale aerial photographs taken all over the world that tell a dramatic visual tale of our changing planet.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s mission was to create a photographic record of the natural world at the start of a new millennium. The collection of 160 images takes viewers off the ground and into the air to witness a bird’s-eye view of the extraordinary patterns and colours created in landscapes all over the world. Some are the result of human activity - farming, industry or habitation. Others are entirely sculpted by nature itself. None of these images could be seen or even imagined if you were standing on the ground.

There’s a gallery of the images here. To see the real thing, get over to the National Waterfront Museum any time of the day or night between 26 May and 29 July.

A pretty eclectic line-up will be playing this Saturday (19th May) at Coffee Cesso next to the Waterfront Museum, in aid of Lawrence’s Roundabout Well Appeal. The charity’s aim is to raise money to buy and install roundabout pumps in Africa. As the site explains:

The roundabout playpump combines a children’s roundabout with a pump. The pumps are usually installed in schools to harness the natural energy of children. As the children play on the roundabout they pump water into a holding tank at the rate of 1400 litres per hour. Each pump can provide up to 2500 people with fresh water.

The gigs will be split into a free day event from 12pm to 7pm, and an evening session from 7pm to midnight that’ll cost £10 per head. During the day, we’ve got those African drumming hippies, Shiko, the Ystradgynlais Brass Band, folk duo String Whistle, Becca Lynne, Jennifer Kalviac and the all-female a capella harmonisers, Scarabella.

The evening session will feature Bursting Clouds Hidden Source, an encore from Kalviac, Black Pages, the Welsh urban folk trio Boys From The Hill and Other Peoples Clothes. You can get tickets directly from Coffee Cesso, call 01792 456 100.

Don’t pretend you didn’t know! …its Fairtrade Fortnight in Swansea from the 26th of Feb till 11th of March.

Get up to speed on the events at Fairtrade Swansea.

The Environment Centre has published a Sustainable Living guide promoting events, like Local Produce Markets and training workshops.

You can download the guide and other resources from the Sustainable Swansea website.

“We need to collect all petitions and letters of support by the end of January.

If you have anything, let one of us know and we’ll arrange to pick it up, or you can drop it into Wheelies or Exist.

The response is getting better but it still isn’t great. There are definitely some people I would have expected to write but haven’t.

Please, please, please get as much done for this as possible – funding bodies don’t tend to hand over half a million pounds without some community support.

You can download the petition and letter of support at:
http://www.streetsportsswansea.co.uk/downloads.html

and you can contact us at:
jason@streetsportsswansea.co.uk
ric@streetsportsswansea.co.uk
main@streetsportsswansea.co.uk

C’mon Swansea, you can do it!

(feel free to copy to like minded souls)”

A coalition of local residents and climate action groups are actively opposing the construction of the South Wales LNG Pipeline in three separate locations. The National Grid project will eventually stretch from Milford Haven to Gloucestershire, cutting through the Brecon Beacons National Park, to meet rising demands for Gas in the UK.

Activists at Trebanos, Cilfrew and now Alltwen, argue that their protests are due to “lack of consulation, safety fears, environmental issues and climate change concerns”.

For regular updates on the situation check the Rising Tide website.

Happy belated new year. How was everyones New Year’s Eve?

I rang it in at Sin City, and although I am (still) too old for Face/Off I reckon the new club will have a positive effect on Swansea’s music scene. Already there are two bands on their way (The Bees & 3 Inches of Blood), and I’m not saying we should forget about the local bands, but its nice to have more gigs to go to. Unfortunately, my prediction for Saturday night was way off - instead, according to The Knowhere Guide, we can look forward to a mix of Drum n Bass and Reggae courtesy of Dub Club.

Anyway, if you’re looking for an antidote to Christmas or a way to kick start your resolutions; why not download On The Trail, a sustainable living guide for Swansea, from the Environment Centre.

See you around.

Jamie Jones’ work will be on display from the 5th December until the 5th January at the Oriel Lliw Gallery (Pontardawe Arts Centre).

The title of the exhibition is particularly fitting, as this website’s name was coined during a scene in Twin Town when two characters discuss poetry, Swansea and Dylan Thomas.

(Image credit: Swansea Docks by Jamie Jones)