The welovelocal Blog

It’s August, we’re in the final few days of summer, how are you going to round off your favourite season? How about attending one of the UK’s great music festivals? You’re going to need to be quick because there’s only a few left – Notting Hill Carnival in London, the Reading and Leeds festivals, Bestival on the Isle Of Wght etc.

If standing in a muddy field listening to music at an ungodly volume is not for you, how about re-creating a music festival in your own home? Don’t worry, we haven’t just taken some funny pills, we just thought it might be fun to distil the essence of a Great British tradition while ensuring you can get into your own bed at night,.

Music is at the heart of Notting Hill Carnival, with traditional and contemporary sounds filling the air for miles around. Historically steel bands Soca & Calypso are the sounds of the carnival but in recent years anything from Reggae to R&B, Funk, House, Dub is accepted. So to get your party started what about visiting a local record store to get some crucial tunes.  Beatdown Records in Newcastle are particularly adept at kicking things off

One of the best things about a festival is the freedom to wear clothes you wouldn’t ordinarily touch. Seen those comedy hats at Glastonbury? Exactly. Colour is the key and vintage is essential for recreating the indie look. Angels in London and Vintage in Birmingham will sort you right out.

Usually, food isn’t too high on the agenda if you’re getting stuck in to a festival. Look around, however, and you’ll see all sorts of stalls offering up all sorts of weird and wonderful delicacies. To bring a little flavour of that into your own home, try something a bit more exotic from your locale. Café Caribben in Covent Garden is a fine example. Lovely!

An important part of any festival is the spectacle, the decorations and use of colour. Why not get all Laurence Llywelyn-Bowen on your house and hang things out the window, on walls and from ceilings. Any number of party shops will be able to help, like Bash in Leeds.

So there you have it. A great way to enjoy the August Bank Holiday without the crowds, the racket and the overcrowded public transport. Over to you…

The lovely picture is from goomauk on Flickr

And why not follow us on Twitter here.

We call time on our iTunes competition and announce last week’s three winners as well as the lucky devil who’s scooped the grand prize.

I remember when it were all blogs around here. You know the vibe – pithy observations on moderately important events that have shaken our world for one reason or another. The type of observations that we could crowbar a few reviews and welovelocal businesses into. Remember those days? The good old days? Well, they’re about to return because our big iTunes promotion is now officially over.

You’ve reviewed businesses in your droves. Some have positively rocked your world, others have irritatingly needled you into delivering negative reviews. We’ve loved and appreciated them all. Even those that we had to delete very quickly because they were a touch rude. So… (cue moderate, yet impressive drum roll)… we have the final three winners from last week, all of whom will be dancing to ten* free songs on iTunes.

MC celebrated his birthday at Saffron Pink’s in Dudley and was blown away by the food and service. And MC, for the record, you don’t look 46 at all. In fact, you look more like a cat to us.

James H returned with a great review of The Kings Arms in London. He’s no idea how he found it, but he’s glad he did. As are we – a great review, sir.

And finally, Molly was really impressed with her nails at Gigi. Well done, Molly. Here’s some codes for ya’.

And finally to the grand prize winner. To be fair, we knew she was something special when we first read this review and, despite the many number of great reviews she’s written since, we couldn’t help but feel there was something special about this one.

And so… (cue massively impressive drum roll on the biggest set of drums in the world)… the winner of 50 free songs on iTunes is…

Dawn W with her review of Captin Jaspers.

Congratulations Dawn!

So, with a small dewy tear in our eye, we declare the competition over. Normal blog-type service will resume very shortly. We will say that there’s a bit of a surprise on the way, but we can’t divulge any further secrets. You’ll know soon enough…

And, finally, here’s some Ts and Cs for those who’ve won this week. Huzzah!

This content code expires 31/08/09 and is redeemable only on the iTunes Store for the UK. To redeem the code you must have an iTunes account, subject to prior acceptance of licence and usage terms. To open an account you must be above the age of 13 and located in the UK. You will need a credit or debit card to activate your account.  iTunes 6.0 (7.0 or later for video), compatible hardware and software, and Internet access (fees may apply) are required. Not for resale. For full terms, see www.apple.com/legal/itunes/uk/gifts.html.  For more information, see www.apple.com/uk/support/musicstore.  Don’t steal music. TM and © 2008 iTunes S.à.r.l. All rights reserved.

*Still reading? Wow, that is impressive. We just wanted to say that we quickly discovered we were giving 20 songs away to winners rather than 10. No, we don’t want them back. Yes, we are generous folk.

The image is by Stefan on flickr

This is it… your last chance to swap a review for some iTunes codes and to bag the biggie - 50 free songs!

A young band from New York in tight trousers (The Strokes) named their album ‘This Is It’* and they may well have been talking about this moment. This is the final week of our iTunes promotion, the last time we’ll be giving away ten free songs to lucky reviewers and the last chance you’ll get to try and win 50 free tunes.

OK, so the eagle-eyed locals of welovelocal, and those of you with some concept of time, may have noticed we messed up a little bit. Last week should have been the final week, but we went on holiday instead. Don’t be angry! We all have to get away occasionally, even if we do love our job as much as we do here on welovelocal, right?

So, this final round will include all reviews in the two week period dated 27 July to 10 August. As before, the final cut-off period is midday.

So who wrote the three best reviews between July 20 and July 27, I hear you ask? Folks, iTunes codes for ten songs will be winging their way to the following:

Dawn W is back with a constructive review of the hotel she visited having been put off by her original choice (you should read that one, too – note to self, don’t get Dawn angry).

Claire D’s review of The Woodbine also made us laugh. It sounds like it isn’t just the beer that helped her enjoy the pub. Is that wedding bells we hear? And do we have to buy a hat? Ooh, we feel like Cilla Black. Surprise, surprise, Claire – here’s some codes.

Isabel’s review of Zushi in Cardiff was also great. Hope all’s well in Wales’s capital city, Isabel. Have some free tunes on us.

So that was this week’s winners (sorta). Who’s going to bag free songs next week? The competition is now open…

Like last time, you need to bear this in mind to be in with a shot of winning:

• You must add a profile picture to your review
• As iTunes codes will be e-mailed to our winners, please ensure the e-mail address we have for you is correct!
• The weekly competition opens at midday on Monday and closes the following Monday, at midday. Our run of competitions ends on 3rd August, 2009.
• All reviews must conform to our usual terms of service

And here are a few Ts And Cs from iTunes…

This content code expires 31/08/09 and is redeemable only on the iTunes Store for the UK. To redeem the code you must have an iTunes account, subject to prior acceptance of licence and usage terms. To open an account you must be above the age of 13 and located in the UK. You will need a credit or debit card to activate your account.  iTunes 6.0 (7.0 or later for video), compatible hardware and software, and Internet access (fees may apply) are required. Not for resale. For full terms, see www.apple.com/legal/itunes/uk/gifts.html.  For more information, see www.apple.com/uk/support/musicstore.  Don’t steal music. TM and © 2008 iTunes S.à.r.l. All rights reserved.

The picture is courtesy of tigerplish on Flickr

*PS OK, so The Strokes album was called ‘Is This It’. Grant us a bit of artistic license, eh?