Batten Sportswear

By way of ACL

Sabotage Times interesting links

Where to eat in the West EndAlways useful

Northerners: portrait of a no nonsense people

How to look good in the countryside

Casual Connoisseur

From the Nuji Blog I'm a huge fan of Casual Connoisseur and Oneupmanship. The designs from CC, attention to detail in their clothing releases and sources of inspiration and icons are first class; the Oneup approach to style in my opinion is essential reading and a look which is post-casual, smart and sussed, a look not a label and a million miles away from a aquascutum baseball cap as you can get.

Above is a link to an interview with CC.

Brew Dog

For some reason its taken me a while to get round to trying some of these, not sure why I waited so long. The 5am saint, Punk IPA & Hardcore IPA are all amazing.

Converted. Looks like they only have a couple of bars in Scotland at the moment, hopefully they'll get one in London.

Studio 8

Regents Park Road

Catch the beat

Clarks Originals for Concepts Boston

Must remember this shop when I go to Boston later in the year. Sadly, these will all be gone. I am sure.

DJ Harvey

Black cock records, ultra rare mixtapes, open all hours on a Friday, one of my all time favourites

Foster the People

I rather like them.

Mack Shoes, Aldeburgh

In Aldeburgh, a super sleepy Suffolk town on the coast there is are 2 amazing fish and chip shops, a brilliant book shop and quite unexpectedly the best shoe shop I have ever been to - Mack Shoes. They have Trickers, Grensons, Alfred Sargants, probably Loakes, anyway more brogues and oxfords than you could shake a stick at. And all discounted when I was there............

How do your like your eggs?

I don't really follow him too closely these days, but I enjoyed Exit through the gift shop immensely; and actually I have always found him pretty witty. This picture reminded me of that.

Jonsi

New album from one of the fellas out of Sigur Ros, I haven't actually checked that, but I'd be bloody amazed if he's not.

I also somewhat reluctantly bought: What did you expect from the Vaccines? And the answer was not an album which is good as this. Ok, it sounds like a Ramones rip off and for the class warriors out there I think they are from public school, but I like it.

I am also experimenting with Kurt Vile - undecided and sadly despite their wicked name: Esben & the Witch I have assigned them to the miss pile. Although I think a miss is now called a fail.

It is usually around this time of year that I try a few new albums, mainly because I have a 45 minute journey to outer London everyday; and as good as these records are, I have also been revisiting Alicia Key's 'Songs in A Minor', now that truly is a classic album.

Diamond Geezer

I've posted this fella before with his anorak bus routes in South London. Turns out he's more than just bus routes, he takes trips to Northampton as well. Ace.

Sunshine Cleaning

This may replace 'The Lives of Others' as my favourite film, really enjoyable in an indie quirky way.

Pub Crawl Generator

Type in your postcode and way you go genius

Plenty of nice coats

Available here

Soul Patrol best of 2010

Probably should be looking forward not back by February - but noticed that the Soul Patrol newsletter had the Treme soundtrack as one of the best albums of 2010. Might even have been the best, but I've closed the window now.

Beers of Europe

Enough reason to drive to Norfolk and back if ever there was one

Beers of Europe

Long distance walkers association

Link here for future use.

More walking info

This fella seems to pick a good route, will follow a few of them in the weeks to come.

Natural Footwear , Golders Green

Somewhere up on Finchley Road, but they appear to have the lot

Norrona

I'll get the last month of winter out of the way and will then take the plunge on a new technical walking coat, current front runners are something from Patagonia or maybe this lot Decisions, decisions.

Llywarch

More trainers & nice jumpers

The Great Outdoors

The Great Outdoors on BBC4, total class.

Samichlaus

Treme

Treme, as good as the Wire, actually better than the Wire.

Soon come in the UK. I feel like funkin' it up.

Stop HS2 Campaign

I'm not overtly political these days, I'm still a Socialist at heart, sharp satire and quiet tutting tends to see me through. But this High Speed Rail link which is planned to go right through the Chilterns, prime rambing country and an AONB to boot has really got my end up.

Some rumours I've heard are that the 20 mins journey saved will then be lost by the commute from the new station outside Central Birmingham, it will be carbon neutral as opposed to reducing carbon, I should imagine not building it would have the same carbon emission effect; and that there isn't any money to build it anyway. So why fucking bother and ruin this amazing area.

This isn't case of Nimby-ism, as I live in London.

Stop HS2 Campaign here

John Craven on Countryfile here