Custom cruisecontrol.rb task to handle migrations with seed data. (for when standard cruise build task yields FK constraint violations when the fixtures start loading).
#This builds from migrations each time (slower, but more reliable).
#Must then empty seed data before tests start to delete stuff, or FK constraints get violated.
task :cruise do
ENV['RAILS_ENV'] = 'test'
puts "custom cruise task invoked. env is hardcoded to test"
Rake::Task["environment"].invoke
#start from scratch with just the test db
Rake::Task["db:test:purge"].invoke
#necessary to reconnect, as purge drops database (and w mysql the conn)
CruiseControl::reconnect
#run all migrations from scratch. slow but clean
Rake::Task["db:migrate"].invoke
#empty the db of data - migration has loaded seed data into the tables,
#which'll be deleted badly by test fixtures loader.
#NOTE: db:test:purgetwo is just a quick hack to force this identical action to be called again
#TODO: replace with the correct way to force execution of a task in rake
Rake::Task["db:test:purgetwo"].invoke
#necessary to reconnect, as purge drops database (and w mysql the conn)
CruiseControl::reconnect
#the migration has already done a schema dump
Rake::Task["db:schema:load"].invoke
success = Rake::Task["test"].invoke
success
end
Embarrassingly, this currently needs ‘db:test:purgetwo’ to exist. I just copied pasted db:test:purge task. The correct way would be to look at how to ensure task execution in rake, but debugging cruisecontrol.rb exhausted all my patience and sanity.
AfroCuban Lounge at The Buffalo Bar just next to highbury & islington tube, on a Monday night. Lessons and club. Excellent tuition. Susan and Jim are very professional, clearly very experienced, and exceptionally articulate. I would recommend everyone try a lesson with these guys, regardless of their level (even if they just want to pick up good teaching habits). I’d actually recommend their Sunday lessons at “The Place” dance studios even more highly (see below) because there’s more space there to make your mistakes.
The club has a great vibe, near 100% cuban dancers, quite a few good ones, and great cuban tunes from beginning to end. If only the venue had a bit more room. Floor is ok, sound is good. [more info]
A lo Cubano, every Monday at the Nueva Costa Dorada. - this is cancelled now.
Tuesday:
“Rincon Afro-Rumba Cubana”, every Tuesday near Bethnal Green. From 26th August, Ariel Rios Robert will recommence teaching rumba and orishas, gradually and methodically, to what should again be a stable group of students (though it is a drop-in class). Such lessons are sadly rare in London. This is NOT salsa, but is far more important than endless classes learning and forgetting complicated moves, if you’re looking to improve your cuban salsa. No website yet. Venue is La Forchetta, 464 Bethnal Green Road, London E2 0EA
Osbanis Tejeda’s “Salsa con Manana” on a Tuesday, just south of Tower Bridge. This is a new night. Two hours of cuban lessons (primarily salsa, with an emphasis on style) and a little social dancing afterwards. Osbanis and Anneta really seem to be enjoying teaching here and are dancing with all the students in the club afterwards. (If you don’t know him, Osbanis has fantastic musicality and style, and there’s a great sense of fun in his dancing, too.) The dance floor and sound system are good, and the club is free in before 9pm. While the location might initially seem tricky to get to on a map, it’s a really easy 10 min walk from London Bridge Underground (for example).
Rhum Jungle on a Tuesday in Farringdon. I haven’t been yet, but this is DJ Rich, so the music and tuition will be great and properly cuban. Lessons and club.
Wednesday:
Cuban Connection at 4 Wild Court near Holborn tube, on a Wednesday night. (Lessons: always some rueda, as well as rotating lessons on rumba, son, reggaeton, styling, etc. Recent teachers: Ariel, Rafael, Janet, and Osbanis). Club has recently had a great turnout. Lots of space. Floor is good, sound system is not. This place probably gets the best turn-out of dancers for cuban salsa for any weekly night. Disclaimer: I’ve grown to be friends with a couple of the organisers since I met them there.
Thursday:
Baila con César
A new weekly class and club starting Thursday 3rd September 2009, with lessons from César Pacheco. Including “popular Latin Dances, such us Son, Cha cha cha, Mambo, Reggaeton, Merengue a lo cubano, Bachata a lo cubano and others”. Venue is La Forchetta, 464 Bethnal Green Road, London E2 0EA
“The Cuban” in camden stables (camden market) on a Thursday. Rueda lessons at 9pm. I took an excellent, absolute-beginner’s class with Alastair Sadler there once, but I never graduated to Moe Flex’s popular advanced rueda class before the music in the club part of the night put me off. Despite the venue’s name, they seem to play very little cuban music here and (quite rightly) therefore the dancing is generally not casino. However, there are some superb dancers here, and some of my favourite rueda callers in London!
While I can’t myself recommend this popular club for a night of cuban salsa, try out the lessons at least. Sometimes cramped but otherwise ok floor. (Expect the occasional drunken student to scurry through your rueda trailing two pints of lager.) The sound system is good. [more info]
Friday:
Tito’s latin bar at london bridge on a Friday. Fun rueda-based lessons from 7pm, then club at 9:30pm-ish til late. The music starts off as cuban salsa, but as the night progresses (around 11pm) the dj changes and more merengue and bachata is played and the salsa goes colombian, and sadly they put the volume up too loud for me). New floor as of summer, 2009 is bigger and good. Sound is good (until 11pm - see above). Shame about the disorienting disco lights.[more info]
Floridita’s in wardour street, soho. I only mention this because there’s not currently much option for friday nights apart from Tito’s (above).
Drinks are expensive (~10 pounds for a cuba libre), and entry is a whopping 15 pounds after 9pm (often free before that). Good live cuban music (mostly son) until around 11pm (though recently the bands seem to be playing always the same standards - dictated, to please the diners, perhaps?) This restaurant’s small dance-floor is generally full of tipsy non-dancers having a go, but off the floor you might find some corner to dance in. Often has great DJ’s for cuban music, though they play a mix of salsa styles. Also expect a fair amount of merengue and reggaeton crowd-pleasing, too. It will cycle back to salsa if you wait long enough.
Best from midnight onwards (open til 3am), as spaces begin to appear in which you can dance. Don’t go here unless you have checked that some other cuban dancers are going, too! The few good dancers that do go tend to be cross-body. There’s a dress code, which is described as “funky and glamorous” (but then, they let me in!).
Saturday:
nothing I know of Sunday:
Lessons at The Place studio (again with Salsa Caribe), Sunday 2pm. I really recommend these lessons, especially if you’re serious about getting your basic technique right.
Rueda in the Park. My favourite, and not just because it’s free! In Hyde Park at 3:33pm til dark (so yes, until around 9pm in summer). Practice partner-dancing as well as rueda. There are no formal lessons here, and yet it is my favourite place to learn. You’ll frequently find someone being shown something at the side of the dance floor by a friendly peer, and many people learn to call la rueda here, too.
Don’t wear good dancing shoes - the concrete floor will eat them. And take water and a picnic - the nearest shop is expensive.
While through spring and summer it is held near lancaster gate tube, note that as winter draws in we tend to move to hyde park corner - but check the website.
Afterwards, many head to bar salsa or (my recommendation) la clave cubana, see below. [more info on Rueda at the Park]
“Rueda del Mundo” short course in Cricklewood by Moe Flex and Fadi. I haven’t done one of these courses yet, but I’ve heard they’re really good. Nice to see them integrating a workshop on “How to make the ladies look good in Rueda”, by Iris de Brito, too.
La Clave Cubana in Brixton. Every two weeks (2nd and 4th Sunday of each month but check the website). Lessons and club. Richard’s tuition is great (very clear), and he keeps his rueda lessons a lot of fun (and effective). Great music - as at the buffalo bar, it is dedicated cuban salsa and timba and a little son. Joy. Sound system is good. Floor is ok in places and pretty patchy in others. I recently discovered that the bar food is really great here, too! You can listen through some of Dj Rich’s current favourite tracks here.
Bar Salsa on a Sunday night. Lessons, then club @10pm. Club plays a mix of music styles. Some cuban tracks. Seems to vary month by month how much cuban the dj’s are allowed to play, and it always seems to be 70% cross-body dancers, but some good cuban dancers show up, too. [more info]. Some girl friends have told me that some of the clientele here are a bit sleazy (there are punters there just drinking, as well as dancers).
Map
Here’s a draft map annotated with all the places reviewed here.
londonsalsa.co.uk is a great database of lessons and clubs; if you could filter to just show cuban places, I probably wouldn’t need to maintain this list!
I had set up rubygame and Ruby/SDL a while back to a point where I could code simple examples, but I wouldn’t actually want to foist the stack setup on anyone else. (In fact, for portability, something like jmonkeyengine on java, running jruby for scripting makes more sense (at least where download sizes don’t matter)).
I’m learning salsa, specifically cuban salsa. To this I am addicted. I’m past beginner now, and have just enough of the basics to carry me through a dance with a forgiving, preferably amnesic girl. To make any real progress beyond the basics, I know I have to go out and make a fool of myself over and over in the clubs. Here, above, is a video which demonstrates some of what I like about this style (besides the way the girls dance!) and where, I suppose, I want to get to. This guy doesn’t do any fancy moves; it’s all just style, just play. I think it also invalidates any argument along the lines of “Ah, I’m not cuban so I’ll never be able to dance like that…”.
beautiful “6 billion others” portraits project.
“A future online repository of thousands of video & audio testimonies as a portrait of contemporary mankind”.
While the desolate-looking photos in the flickr set are interesting, I wonder if the empty billboard frames have been cleared down, or replaced with some art, or murals, information, etc.
Sitting waiting on the tube, how cool would it be to get to stare across at prints of fine art, good photos, a well done mural or “graffiti”, some classic poems, a big map of the local area for each station / some history of the area, a “what’s on” for the month, or just an occasional refreshingly bare wall. Anything but those insipid oppressive posters we daily try to avoid looking at.
I think I posted this “light criticism” project a while back from the Anti-Advertising Agency, about “New York’s True Graffiti Problem”.
“… the Web 2.0 generation, with its YouTube and Twitter mania, has gotten a particularly bad rap for self-obsession and indulgence.”
Article: “Responsibility is in their sites. / Web entrepreneurs have an eye on social need” - San Francisco Chronicle. A step in the right direction, at least.
This Rails sample app from Caboose is “intended to be an example of “better practices”, but with the intention of ultimately being “best practice” through collaboration and iterative improvement.”
“The application implements:
a user model with a few extra fields (last login, timezones)
restful authentication.
full timezone support
basic views implemented with Yahoo! YUI CSS grids.
behavioral testing with rspec, including good example of mocking in controller specs.
I was just about to roll my own and thought I’d better look on the internets:
This svn pre-commit hook will stop you committing the migration
042_add_versioning_for_user_details.rb
when someone else already checked in a migration with the same number
042_do_something_else.rb
It looks well thought out but I haven’t tested it yet. It’s only looking up the existing migrations if it sees you’re checking in a migration, so this hook shouldn’t slow down other check-ins much.
“The idea is to use festival speech synth to turn what people type into rhythms, giving them a simple multi-user interface for playing words together.” More here, or at wednesday’s Dorkbot London.
