Picasso: The Vollard Suite

The British Museum is a great source of free afternoon education and entertainment.  They currently have a display of Picasso sketches known as the Vollard Suite. It's the first time that the whole collection has been displayed a public institution in the UK.

 

 The Dream and Lie of Franco plate 2

Senegambian takeaway

So you can see that the Senegambian takeaway in East Ham was closed when I went to pay a visit. 

It took me about 3 hours to get there and back and 6 buses (and that was just getting there and back from East Ham tube, having gone the wrong way, ended up on a terminating bus and being desperate for the loo and having to stop at McDonalds at one point).  All of which reminded me of travelling round the Gambia (only the weather was much better over there). So I am going to include it in my blog. 

Sui Jianguo's Discus Thrower

Chinese artist Sui Jianguo has reimagined that famous ancient world statue the Discobolus.  You can see it, along with the Townley Discobolus for free at the British Museum throughout the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

North American Landscape

In 2011 the front of the British Museum was transformed into Australia.  This year Kew Gardens have designed a North American landscape for visitors to enjoy.

Lahore

Lahore is the capital city of Punjab in Pakistan and it's also a takeaway restaurant in East Ham.  I had a roti and some super sweet pastries for dessert.

My quest for Laotian food takes me to the USA...

I've been struggling with some countries, one of which is Laos. However a colleague let me know about some food called laab which is eaten in Laos.  He even made some and brought it into the office and it was very tasty.  It's a kind of ground sour and spicy meat dish.

So, laab take 1 was at Hawksmoor near Brick Lane.  They serve it on their bar menu.  Unfortunately their bar is only open in evenings and I went during the day.

Laab take 2 was the Pitt Co. food truck under Hungerford Bridge.  Unfortunately they'd just run out when we arrived.

Laab take 3 was at Pitt Co's permanent restaurant in Soho.  We finally sat down only for the waitress to say they were all out of laab!

We had a very tasty southern US barbeque style pulled pork and 'slaw instead.

 

Pitt Co's restaurant is very small but the service is fast and the food tasty.

Laab 4 was another trip to Pitt Co's van, only to find they didn't have any laab that day.  Since I've tried 4 times to visit Laos I am going to add it to my blog, because I am annoyed.

Cargoland

In Benin petrol trafficking from nearby Nigeria is a dangerous business. Romauld Hazoumè's exhibition in the October Gallery explore the issues of exploitation of petrol and water in Benin through photographs, masks made from petrol canisters and customised cargo carrying tricycles.

Melodifestivalen in London

Melodifestivalen is the competition in which Sweden chooses a contestant for the Eurovision song contest.

You can catch some of this camp Swedish madness at an event organised by Eurofest. 

http://eurofestuk.wordpress.com/

Shirley Clamp was playing at Royal Vauxhall Tavern as part of a Eurofest event to raise money for Pride.  Afterewards there was a Eurovision/Melodifestivalen themed disco, with a few euro songs thrown in for good measure.

Bario Central Soho

Barrio Central is the sister bar of Barrio North in Islington with the same crazy decorations and tasty cocktails.

It is also the only bar where I've seen a romantic encounter between a woman and a statue.  Who'd have thought it?

Masters of Transvangarde

Transvangarde is a type of post avant garde art.  And your guess is as good as mine as to what that actually means.

I wonder if there is a link between the October Gallery and the British Museum as I have seen three artists (El Anatsui, Owusu-Ankomah and Rachid Koraichi) exhibiting in both places.

In this exhibition there was work by the following artists:

El Anatsui, Ghana
Ninenna Okore, Nigeria
Owusu-Ankomah, Ghana
Willian S Burroughs, USA
Brion Gysin, England
Gerald Wilde, England
Kenji Yoshida, Japan
Rachid Koraichi, Algeria
Golnaz Fathi, Iran
Govinda Singh, Nepal
Lala Shawa, Palestine
Julien Sinzogan, Benin
Aubrey Willians, Guyana

Bauhaus: Art as Life

I loved the picture that was used to advertise the Bauhaus exhibition in the underground so I thought I'd go along to learn more about this German art school movement.

No photography was allowed in the gallery so these are taken from the gallery guide,

The Bauhaus school was founded in 1919 in Weimar and was finally disbanded by the Nazi party in 1933.

The students had the coolest parties! They had one which had a metal theme and guests entered the party by sliding into the room down a slide.

007 Around the World

The Barbican is currently hosting a James Bond exhibition until September 2012.  These posters advertising the films around the world decorate the entrance hall.

Kofola!

Kofola is a fizzy drink from Czech Republic and Slovakia.

 I'll be honest and say I bought it because of the packaging, which is quite strange.  It's a bit like Coca Cola and Pepsi only with less sugar and more caffeine.

 Romanian biscuits

Noni Juice

I bought these Eastern European and Caribbean products at the Wood Green shopping centre Market Hall and could have spent an absolute fortune there trying all these new things.

Pop Up Design

Even though the London Evening Standard can be a pretentious piece of rubbish, I do have to thank it for telling me about some of the entries on this blog, in particular this pop up design shop on Great Titchfield Street that was open from 20th to 26th June 2012.

Alas, the Jordanian designer had to cancel at the last minute (something about the items being made of concrete and a bit expensive to get to London from Jordan) so I didn't get any new countries.  However there were some cool things there from a range of designers around the world.

By Puzz'le Design, Geneva

 By kubedesign, architetture in cartone, Milan

 By Slam London

 

The shop also featured designers from Hong Kong, USA, Poland and the Netherlands.

Kuriositet

Grand Prix chairs by Danish designer Arne Jacobson, at a fancy furniture shop near Oxford Circus

Henrique 8

Henrique 8 was shown as part of the Globe to Globe series of plays.  My Spanish teacher asked our class if anyone wanted to go along with her.  I'd wanted to go to see something from the series so I decided to go along with her and her friends (after all there's always iPlayer for those Apprentice catch up sessions).

It was also my first time seeing a play in the Globe Theatre.  We had standing tickets.  I have to compare it to my opera experience  here - although the time I was standing up was much longer than at the opera, at the Globe you don't have to stand still in one particular spot, so you can stretch your legs a bit.

 The start of the performance was brilliant. We were all stood around in the yard area when suddenly a guy dressed in grey jumped up on to the stage, followed by another man in grey, and another.  The whole cast had hidden themselves amongst the crowd and started pouring onto the stage from the audience.  We all started looking around to see if we could spot them near us.

During a dramatic court scene, Katherine of Aragon and her lady in waiting exited via the audience. It was funny to see everyone moving out of her way sharpish and she was quite an imposing sight, striding through the crowd and shouting back to Henry.

Luckily, it was also one of the hottest days of the year and a great evening to be outside in the open air.