go out and do something more interesting instead

I've had a few days off work recently, to host a friend who was visiting London for the first time. It's always such a blast to show people around, and have an excuse to do the more touristy stuff that most of the time I'd never get to do.

In recent days I have (on alphabetical order)

Been both up and down the Thames on both banks at different times of day and night, and agreed that it is always fantastic.
Been defeated by Old Dutch Pancakes
Been underwhelmed by the London Mithraeum (which is always better in my head, and even then not a patch on San Clemente)
Caught the sun.
Climbed St Paul's.
Climbed the Monument.
Crossed *almost* all the bridges.
Explored the Guildhall.
Failed to understand why the Worshipful Company of Cutlers have an elephant. (Wiki says it's the ivory connection - and that they're guessing.)
Found a bat at the Globe.
Gone up Tower Bridge for the princely sum of 25p (as one of the attendants said to his colleague - much closer to it's value than the usual price of admission)
Loved my city a lot.
Not strangled any tourists in the British Museum .
Not wanted to strangle any tourists in the V&A.
Peeked inside any number of churches.
Petted Samuel Johnson's cat.
Picked favourite giant guitars from the array down by City Hall.
Sung 'Like a Virgin' loudly to Queen Elizabeth I, in the National Portrait Gallery. (amongst other things - as part of the Sing London festivities, before anyone wonders!)
Taken lots of photos I haven't sorted out yet.
Visited Kew, and lost all track of time.
Walked half all over London (we're both inveterate pedestrians, and walking is a great way of seeing things in passing.)

(My guest also toured the Tower of London and brace of Royal Palaces on her own, as well as attending service at Westminster Abbey.)

Yup - I am still in love with this place!

another brick in the wall

I still don't understand how anyone can live in London and not develop a certain amount of love for architecture. My inner architecture-geek says: this looks so cool!


Technorati Tags: london, architecture, Monument, MAKE Architects

Quit holding out and draw another breath

In a fit of being observant this morning, I managed to come in to work, just around the corner from Haymarket, without noticing that anything was awry.

I was reading the current novel, rather than the paper, this morning, so it wasn't till I read my emails and found the police-bulletins to local residents and a couple from concerned friends overseas that I figured out that there was anything I should have been paying attention to.

(It makes me feel slightly better that a friend who works one building down from the cordon line, only noticed when she discovered a policeman blocking her usual path towards breakfast!)

All hail to the folks who stepped in and diffused the car bomb.

It's not a good or a happy thing that it's occurred, but - I don't know - it's not going to stop me coming to work, or coming into town over the weekend, unless the situation changes quite drastically.

I might have to dig out the version of The Clash's London Calling overdubbed with Blair's 7/7 speech which we danced to the next day, not 200 yards from Kings Cross, though.  

The purpose of terrorism is just that, it is to terrorise people and we will not be terrorised.

when the lightening strikes

Before it fades, I want to try and sketch down some thoughts about all the dance I've been able to see in the last few days. (I love the free festival season!)

On Saturday I dipped into the Docklands+Greenwich Festival (external events kept me from doing more of it, but - next year!) The theme for the festival this year was 'bringing the inside, out'. Huddling under the canopy of the dock willing the rain to stop, unfortunately, does bring to mind the advantages of the inside ... Actually, the crews did great job of keeping things running and safe, and much kudos to the dancers for working through and around it. I overheard a bit of bitching that we were 'kept waiting' while both crew and dancers mopped down and towel-dried the stage at one point, which infuriated me - a bad slip could end someone's career, ffs!

Down on the riverside, I caught the end of Motionhouse's 'bar hopper' piece. Maybe it's 'cos I wandered up part way through, but this didn't grab me. (Fondest memory is, in fact, watching the next performers, Hofesh Schechter, warming up off to the side of the steps I was sitting on, and seeing two of them quietly taking the mick out of Motionhouse's 'club' music by launching into a synchronised phrase of the Joey Dance ;D )

Hofesh Shechter - who were why I was over on that stage - were the highpoint of the day for me. They were also the closest to getting rained off entirely, and I'm very glad that they persevered. I saw them at the Sadlers Wells Sampled with the same piece, Uprising. I loved it then, and it was fascinating to see it again - this time almost from the wings - sat on the floor, two feet to stage left, so sometimes the dancers 'off' were my view, and I was close enough to see every expression, every breath, hear the foot-falls. (I tried to take a few photos, but didn't want to stop *watching*, so they're not particularly good.)

Les Ballets Grooms were sadly miss advertised. They were really fun, and really talented, (and identifiably *French*), but the comedy was more musical than dance, and it wasn't quite what I wanted to be watching (although you can't really argue with the Nutcracker played by a brass band hidden inside a big pulsating purple sheet ;p) so I bowed out at the transition point where they led a procession off to their second stage.

Frustratingly, I still didn't make it across in time to catch Upswing, as that also sounded interesting, but that meant I did manage to be in the right place at the right time for Sol Pico. Unfortunately, the rain made it too - which did give the fantastic vision of their burning, brilliant orange-clad dancer sweeping across steel grey clouds, but also meant almost all of the ground-based action was obscured by umbrellas. Fortunately, a lot of the action takes place on the bus (a skeletal framework made out of rusted metal) - sort of a Mad Max meets Priscilla Queen of the Desert vibe - and the characters being portrayed were so vibrant and larger than life, it was well worth getting a bit chilly and damp for.

(I did skip the final show I'd planned to go to, though. There's only so much wet and cold I can take in the pursuit of free dance! Although possibly it's better than last year's sunburn...)

Yesterday's dose was part of the City of London Festival:

Steps of St Paul's - Étonne moi! - Students and graduates of the Central School of Ballet perform a spectacular concert of ballet and contemporary dance, including the world première of new work by guest Parisian choreographer, Sir Lionel Hoche.

Thanks to Adventures with Busses I managed to miss most of the first piece, and all that really registered was that the costumes were not to my tastes, but the music was an interesting celtic-ish bodrum-and-chant sort of thing. And I was surprised how few people there were watching. Okay, so the steps of St Pauls are quite *big*, and, if you work, you have to be pretty close to get to these mid-day performances, but still - I guess after the Docklands lot, I was expecting more crowd. Anyway - there were enthusiastic people, but not so many I couldn't see, and then wriggle into better positions as the performance continued.

Second piece was a very cool Handel-inspired piece, with lots of group work. One of the things that really pleased me about it was how they handled the exposed, in the round, outdoors space, switching costumes and roles in full view, and keeping the narrative running in that thread, but completely demarcating the 'performance-performance' space at the same time. They had a 'backstage' in one corner, with a clothes rail that doubled as a barre, and a microphone in another corner, with the 'story' starting with the auction of Degas's Little Dancer - only the statue is revealed to be a real dancer, as the 'auction house staff' broke the statue, so they switch to trying to auction off other dancers as well, and then - I'm writing this and having sudden paranoia that I'm mixing together two pieces - I'll have the check back with the reviews later and see. Anyway - yes - sets of solos and pas de deux, while other dancers in various crazy costumes stepped forward to add bits of spoken word over the music 'Handel repeats a lot' being one repeated phrase I remember. 'Handel rhymes with handle. And candle. And scandal' another. And some very beautiful dance too - I really enjoyed this one. Also they get bonus points for ending with a reversal of several of my-favourite-ballroom-scenes-on-film by having the music by Handel, but the dancers dancing as though they were in a contemporary club.
(This is one of my favourite photos - the 'backstage' bit. )

Third piece was a pair of be-blazered soft-shoe-shufflers, which I think suffered cruelly for being under grey skies and amidst tower blocks - the same interlude down in Docklands in the sun would have felt very different.

Final piece was just lovely - very watery in both movement and costuming - there was a repeating two-person move that I cannot describe, which more than anything made me think of the traditional image of Pisces, with two fish twisted around each other. I know that I will utterly fail to do it justice, and can't remember enough solid facts to attempt a description, but I was entranced. Also. reminded just how beautiful the classic shapes of ballet are. It's a privilege to get to see dancers this close up, with less of the stage lights and razzle dazzle, so you can see the beauty and the strength without getting glitter-pretty in your eyes.

(I tried to take more photos this time:learning from the weekend, I sort of picked my default frame, and then just took shots without looking - lots of missed moments, but a few decent ones, and it wasn't distracting me from *watching*. The link will take you to the set, but if you only look at two, how about this and this?)







Technorati Tags: london, ballet, contemporary dance, docklands festival, city of london festival

I am displeased.

I've just got home from a gig, and - role on July 1st!



The gig itself was fantastic, but I actually had to bail early, missing the headline act, because my asthma's been playing up recently, and the cigarette smoke was acting faster than my inhaler. Fortunately I was there for the two main support acts. Sitting on the tube, I was so very aware that my clothes smelt of smoke, my hair smelt of smoke, even my *bag* smelt. I had to do laundry and get in the shower before I could even make myself a cup of tea when I got in.



I love going to gigs (there's just nothing like live music) but I can so very much live without the attendant air pollution.

Technorati Tags: london, smoking ban

sometimes I go out by myself and I look across the water

There are too many good, free, events going on this weekend!

I think I'm mostly going to focus my energies on the Greenwich + Docklands festival which was so very good last year, but that does mean I'm missing out on the West End Live goodness, as well as Londonists's Waterloo walk, and Tottenham Carnival.

Not enough hours in the day, or days in a weekend!

(Next weekend will be Pride, and Sing London...)

And the public wants what the public gets

This is interesting to me – we've had the morning Metro for, what. about five, six years now? And it's coming up a year that there have been competing evening freebies. And yet they still haven't worked this out…



There comes a point when the thing to do is bring the mountain to Mohammed, surely? Almost everyone seems to think that if you leave your paper on the tube, it'll get recycled. So, rather than complaining that people should know to take their paper home with them to recycle, why aren't the papers left on trains recycled?



Well, okay – many of them are directly recycled, in that they're read by more than one person. I work a late-ish shift at work, so most mornings, if I read the Metro it's because someone left it on the seat.(1)



But why not recycled-recycled?



The papers left on trains. Most of them aren't mixed with other litter when they're left on the train. They're mixed with other litter when the clean up crews come through and pick up the papers and put them in a rubbish bag with other litter. The litter pickers are all people capable of telling the difference between newspapers and general litter, so why not equip them all with two plastic sacks instead of one?



The same kind of goes for cans and plastic bottles, in fact. Seeing as my council collects all three mixed together on a domestic scale, presumably there is a use for them in that form, so; one litter-picker, two bags, a whole lot less landfill.



Possibly there's a reason why something that looks that simple isn't, and the idea has been considered and discarded for good reason. But what if the various companies involved are so busy trying to work out who should pay for what that it hasn't?



***

(1) (If I read TheLondonPaper it's because I've finished my book, and I'm that bored. If I read LondonLite it's because I'm alone on a train late at night, a drunk guy is trying to engage me in conversation and I have no other form of cover… Under these circumstances, experience has shown, I will also read Ice Hockey Review, the stock data in the Financial Times, and a discarded programme from a musical you couldn't pay me to attend.)

Every time that I look on the first day of summer

I've been meaning to post this one for a while : the London Street Signs Project. (1) In their own words:



The London Street Signs project celebrates London's evolution through its rich cartographical heritage.

(They) dress up and stand next to street signs.

Is this not joy?

Especially when you combine it with perfectly formed frames of local history, and tie it up with a luxurious map-based bow.

***

(1) the link will take you directly to Orange Street, which is close to my workplace, and as good a starting point as any. Mostly because it reminded me that, as a small child, I was once sent to a school fancy-dress party as Nell Gwyn...

from the highest hills

I've got a friend coming up to stay this weekend, and we're looking at the Open Garden Squares weekend, and trying to work out if it's better value for money than  assembling a picnic at Borough Market and wandering down to Greenwich Park or similar.



Garden Squares is £6 / head, and has several very interesting looking gardens on the list (although no longer Holloway Prison, which is one of the ones that caught my eye).



Greenwich Park is, of course, free, but the various specialities on offer at Borough Market could easily be that much more than grabbing sandwich ingredients in the supermarket.  They'll be at least that much more delicious to, though.

Ad men plan again

I am pro-Olympics. I'm proud that my city won the bid for 2012. I think it has an incredible potential to positively affect all sorts of things, not least of which would be my immediate neighbourhood. I'm okay with paying for some of that through my council tax. I'm on the pre-reg list for volunteer slots, because - why not?  I can walk to most of the venues!



But this This does not particularly fill me with joy.



Maybe I'm dysfunctional as a member of a consumerist twenty-first century community, but I'm just not excited about the opportunity to be "introduced to the new London 2012 brand".



Mostly I'm just irritated by receiving an email where 5% of the words used are 'brand'.

One of many zeroes

Hmm - free Britpop. This looks like it could be a fun blast from the past. (and if it's not - well - it's free and we can always wander off and do something else.)



Bit too late to switch plans for this week, but consider this me making a note for July.



http://www.burnsoobright.co.uk/

And altho' so near the landing, I, alas! was cast away.

Dear Firebugs : Please stop burning up historic locations around me. (That and anything that's going to mess up the trains.)



The poor Cutty Sark isn't going to seem real until next time I head over to that neck of the woods. It's almost impossible to imagine the river front there without her. It seems almost disloyal to go visit the Götheburg, although  I probably still will.

wombling free

So I've been thinking : what is your favourite thing to do for free in London?



If forced to pick only one, I'd have to say 'walking', which is a total cop-out, I realise, but is still true.



If forced to pick one route? (which is hard!) South bank downriver from Westminster to Tower Bridge, and back up the North bank. I do a part of that walk three, four times a week, and there's always something new to notice. (Yesterday I was not only spotting sculptures on the skyline, but also they've covered the NT in grass ...)



In fact - it's Friday. Let's make a meme.



Your favourite _______ in London.



1 -- free thing to do

2 -- cheap (ish) place to eat

3 -- one-off tourist splurge (say, £30?)



________________________



1 - Walking the river

2 - Mother Mash

3 - River boat either up to Greenwich or down to Hampton Court Palace.

(bonus tip - take the boat to HC with a picnic, and then get the train home, which is quicker and cheaper)



Yours?





Technorati Tags: london

Now above and beyond the roofs of our city

So it's farewell to one student group, and tomorrow will bring a new lot, here for the short summer session.



It's a tight turn around between the two groups, which means early starts, and late nights for a week or so, but - I don't know. I've covered a fair amount of ground today. Marble Arch in the early morning, Bloomsbury this afternoon, Oxford Street and surrounds in between, a quick dive across Waterloo Bridge to pick up something from Foyles on the South Bank. Ten minutes snatched for lunch, sitting on one of the fountains in Trafalgar Square listening to the water and watching tourists climb the lions. It's worth it, you know? Worth all of it. Because this is mine. This is my home town. I love this place.



And I think that the city has meant something to the folks who are leaving, although I guess I'll never know what or how much, and I hope that it comes to mean something to the ones just arriving.

Nicotine from a silver screen

I won't be able to go, as it clashes with a late working day, but this looks interesting (and free):

An Evening with Alfred Hitchcock

Wednesday 16th May, from 6pm

In 1972, young film journalist Sandra Shevey was granted an audience with the master of mischief, mayhem and murder, Alfred Hitchcock. He was at that time approaching the end of his 50 year career, having just directed the penultimate of his 53 films. The interview was recorded on audiotape, but as befitting the man of mystery, 35 years on, it has never been published or aired...until now!

Sandra will introduce virtually the whole of this fascinating feature-length survey of Hitchcock's career, interspersed with film clips. A word of warning however - some of the subject matter is not for the faint-hearted!

This free event takes place, appropriately, at Westminster Reference Library, in the West End; the heart of Britain's entertainment industry. You will be able browse through the many books relating to Hitchcock, including sixteen books specifically on his life and films.

So is there anything new under the sun to discover about the venerable old rascal? Sandra met him, has seen his complete works, conducts walking tours through Hitchcock's London and is preparing a new book on him: and armed with this priceless recording, if anyone can shed new light on him, she can!

Admission is free, but please book in advance to ensure a place.

Westminster Reference Library,

35 St Martin's Street

WC2H 7HP

Tel: 020 7641 5250

email: pcollins@westminster.gov.uk

Technorati Tags: film history, hitchcock,