On a dreary British day, or any other day for that matter, Northamptonshire may not appeal to most Londoners who are more used to the hustle and bustle of the city. However I discovered that there is more to Northamptonshire than first meets the eye and that it is arguably the home of British shoemaking. It is simple really, follow the sounds of clicking, buzzing and whirring and you will end up at the surprising birth place of a longstanding cultural British icon, the home of Dr. Martens.

Screen printing is a very simple craft, but the precision and patience required to produce a single print are skills in itself. You might have seen Peckham Print Studio at their Boxpark pop-up earlier this year- Yin first came across their work at an event last summer. It’s been a long time coming but last weekend, we had the pleasure of doing a workshop with screen printers, Hugh Barrell and Nathan Bryant of Peckham Print Studios.

The second installment of our London’s Portrait series takes us to SW, and into the heart of Brixton. Bob Dylan, a man who everyone should find a moment to quote once a week, once sang: Don’t stand in the doorway/ Don’t block up the hall / He that gets hurt / Will be he who has stalled / There’s a battle outside / And it is ragin / It’ll soon shake your windows / And rattle your walls / For the times they are a-changin’. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Ol’Bob was talking about Brixton, 2013. Times they are a-changin, and a battle is indeed ragin’; and on one side is regeneration, and on the other, gentrification.

To me, storytelling is the highest form of artistry. Every form of creative expression should, in some way, tell us a story. As a writer, being able to see the story in a piece of work is so fundamental to me that if I don’t, it doesn’t resonate with me. True poetry is the ultimate storytelling performance art; every stanza, verse, chorus (yes, songs are poetry) encapsulates us with a tale that goes far beyond the words and settles somewhere deep within us.

It’s been a while since our last Y&Y Travels feature in Switzerland, it’s been long overdue but finally we’re back at it. DJB and I headed off to Nice last month for a weekend of exploration and an escape from the concrete jungle that is London. It’s always nice to get away even if it’s just for a few days, so when the folks at SKYN UK decided to send us on this expedition we just couldn’t refuse. Yes, you may be wondering why a condom company wanted to send us across Europe to experience fancy bars and restaurants, well the answer is simple – the folks over at SKYN like to do things a little differently and we certainly weren’t complaining. Any excuse to indulge in a lifestyle to the norm and take a few days off work. More after the cut.

When it comes to influencer activations and events, I rarely bother attending any more. It’s always the same forgettable experience with bunch of new product and folks talking monotonous PR scripts. Once in a while when I know it’s going to be good, I’ll crawl out of my batcave to attend and Nike+ FuelBand SE launch was definitely one of those. Taking the attendees out of their comfort zones was a key part of the day which I tried to embrace to the fullest, starting with cycling to skipping and much more. A half-day full of activities to help us interpret the day to day lifestyle usage of the FuelBand and it’s plethora of new features. It’s not just about the early morning gym session – it’s about maintaining activity throughout your day. Shocking fact: only 2% of us move for more than 5 minutes every hour. I’ve also got an interview with the man pictured above, Stefan Olander so head on over to the flip side.

Yin here! before I hand off to DJB who’s our very own in-house Ainsley Harriet in the making. We’ve been quiet on the site front, mainly my fault due to home renovation and lack of wifi. All to change this week with a travel competition and a few features coming your way. From a site that started off writing about street culture to all things that we liked and as we grew as people, the site did too. That’s why I’m proud to present our first family cooking feature. I’ll let DJB takeover from here…