Whole in the Wall

'Whole in the Wall' was an exhibition at the Ayyam Gallery in New Bond Street by Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar.

The exhibition was an observation on daily life in Palestine using the medium of concrete. The show included a long concrete wall separating the gallery entrance with the information desk.  A hole in this wall in the shape of Palestine allowed visitors to the gallery climb through the installation itself to continue their visit.

 The exhibition also featured videos of the artist chipping small pieces of concrete from the Israeli-Gaza barrier which he then used to create several sculptures of everyday objects.  These also featured in the gallery.

Souk Medina

Souk Medina is a very atmospheric Moroccan restaurant in Covent Garden, spread out over a number of cosy, decorated rooms.

A bellydancer had the hen party at the table next to us up and dancing away in the centre of the room.

Unfortunately, the service was incredibly slow. We were not even offered menus initially and had to find them from a nearby waiter workstation.  However, when our order had finally been taken the food itself arrived very quickly. We went for a range of small starters and most of them were quite spicy.  This was no problem at all for me but was a bit of an issue for my dining companion.

I think the fact that we were sat with a hen party gives a hint to the fact that this restaurant is clearly aimed at and patronised by tourists, which may explain the poor service.  Nevertheless, the look of the restaurant is lovely and more then made up for the rather haphazard service for me.

The Maple Leaf

As you might expect from the name, the Maple Leaf is a Canadian pub in Covent Garden.

They serve Canadian beer, English cider and show Irish sports on TV.  Despite being the heart of the West End, the pub was pretty quiet when we visited on a Thursday evening which meant that we were easily able to get a set and also have a conversation at a normal volume.  These are two things that are not always easy to find in a Central London pub.

Lord of art

Goncalo Mabunda is an artist from Mozambique who creates art installations and sculptures out of decommissioned weapons, from AK47s to rocket launchers.

He is also part of an art collective who have had their work displayed in the British Museum (I have posted about that exhibition previously in my blog).

I was lucky enough to attend the opening night of the exhibition at the ever enjoyable Jack Bell Gallery.

Brazilian Music in a tunnel shaft

Who doesn't love a good underground gig?

The Brunel Museum`s world music series was literally below ground in a tunnel shaft.  It gets my vote for "best place to go to escape a heat wave / hide from a zombie apocalypse."

After a brief talk about the history of the site (at one point it was home to London`s first, and one assumes last, underwater brothel) we listened to the hypnotic beats of Adriano Alewale`s large range of percussion instruments, accompanied by Diego Rio on guitar. There was even a small bar set up in the shaft!   I didn't partake in any alcoholic drinks however as the staircase down the shaft would have been somewhat challenging to negotiate whilst tipsy.

Africa Centre big weekend

The Africa Centre has been in Covent Garden since the 1960s and,they recently had a big event in Covent Garden market showcasing talented, up and coming African musicians.

Acklam Road food market

There are endless markets and specialist food shops in London and the more I travel through the city, the more I realise they are too numerous to blog about. From Peckham to Shepherds Bush, if you need to buy food, clothing or material from a particular country, you are spoiled for choice.

Still, I will keep adding them to my blog when I have the time. So first to West London and to the little collection of food stalls under the Westway, where you can buy Portuguese, Polish and Venezuelan food, amongst other cuisines.

Grad

Grad is a new Russian art gallery that has opened in Fitzrovia, showing art from both Russia and the UK.

They had a very interesting recent exhibition about Russian-made tourist posters from the 1930s.  The posters were in glass frames so there is a bit of glare in my pictures but you still can get an idea of how the posters looked.

 A poster aimed at German tourists

 A proposed design that was never made into a poster at the time

Two poster emphasising Russia's cultural achievements

These posters were contrasted with how Russia was portrayed in internal propaganda.  The two styles of posters were very different.  In the external tourism posters the beauty of the landscape was emphasised and a romanticised vision of glamorous women and fast cars was shown.

Internal propaganda focused on spreading the communist message. Images of planes were used in a purely military sense.

An external Russian tourism poster, aimed at the French market, featuring a plane 

An internal poster featuring images of planes.

These two posters use images of planes.  In the first poster the viewer is positioned at the same height as the plane and is able to view the whole of Europe.  The internal propaganda poster show the plane above the people looking up at it, literally cutting them off from the skies.

A though-provoking exhibition.

Blue Lagoon

Blue Lagoon is a Thai restaurant in Haymarket that participates in the Taste Card scheme, hence my visit!

Not much else to report really. Tasty Thai food in a non pretentious setting, which is as much as anyone can expect from the West End.

N is for Nigeria

Another dinner with the dining group, this time at a Majestic, a Nigerian restaurant in Brixton.

Overall eating at this restaurant was quite a somewhat chaotic experience. 

None of us had any idea what Nigerian food was like so we didn't really know what we were ordering.   The waiter made sure that he took our names when he wrote down our orders so that he could just call the name out 'Starbuck's style' when he brought the food.

We were quite a large group and our orders ended up being taken in two turns, so that our food arrived at quite different times.  Fortunately, my meal was one of the first to arrive.  The name system hadn't made it out into the restaurant with the food so it was a bit of a free-for-all trying to figure out whose food was being brought out.

 We had this mysterious palm wine, which was actually non-alcoholic.

A Nollywood film kept us entertained in the two hour wait between arriving in the restaurant and the food arriving.

My meal. The sauce was super spicy!  I forgot to write down what it was though!

Our meal was accompanied by live music which was quite loud but entertaining.