See the 2012 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion

Your author is rather a fan of architecture, and as such the annual erection of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, beside the Gallery in Kensington Gardens, is always a highlight. This year is the twelfth time a Pavilion has been erected, and the 2012 version was designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei.


This year's Pavilion is, we are told, a reflection on previous constructions, with eleven columns representing one for each previous pavilion. The Pavilion offers visitors the opportunity to sink beneath the Gallery lawn, whilst protecting them with a roof which appears to hover 1.5 metres above the ground.

For more, see http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2012/02/serpentine_gallery_pavilion_2012.html

See From Paris: A Taste for Impressionism at the Royal Academy

Your author spent a very pleasant couple of hours recently wandering 'From Paris: A Taste for Impressionism' at the Royal Academy. The ongoing exhibition brings together 65 paintings which were collected by Singer sewing machine heirs Sterling and Francine Clark, and now belong to the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts, USA.


The Clarks were knowledgeable and avid collectors, and weren't lacking in cash to indulge their interest, as can be seen in the numerous invoices from art dealers which accompany the exhibition, showing just how much they parted with in order to get their hands on the works of Manet, Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Degas, Sisley and other great artists, which come together in this exhibition. But we should be thankful, for the result is an interesting snapshot of impressionism and the works that influenced it, which includes some very beautiful pieces. Thank goodness for sewing machines.

The exhibition continues until 23rd September. For more, see http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/from-paris-a-taste-for-impressionism/

Attend the Notting Hill Carnival

You might think this summer with all the energy expended on sport that London isn't used to holding big events, but as we all know we are a city which is home to some of the biggest and best in the world and the Notting Hill Carnival - held each year on August Bank Holiday Weekend, is one of your author's favourites.


One of the world's largest street parties, the carnival attracts up to a million people to the streets of West London for an event that surely must be the best such event in the UK, for a celebration to end the summer. Your author never gets tired of carnival, which fuses together a number of different cultures in an explosion of sound and colour. Though the families were out yesterday, today is the main day of Carnival, and then tomorrow we're all back to work, beginning the long slog towards Autumn.

For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notting_Hill_Carnival

Take a Sky Ride

Fresh from a marketing triumph which saw them sponsoring Bradley Wiggins through Tour de France and Olympic victories, the people from Team Sky have paid to organise some led rides around London today, taking in Hillingdon, Wandsworth, Richmond and other areas.


The rides sound quite fun - providing the drizzle holds off - and offer a slightly different experience to your usual ambling biking, as long as you can find one suited to your abilities.

For more, see http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/15351.aspx

Eat at Zeret Kitchen

A decent little restaurant on little square set back from Camberwell Road, Zeret Kitchen specialises in traditional Ethiopian cuisine, served well and with a smile. Though your author doesn't know a lot about Ethiopian food, of the few such restaurants he has experienced this has been the best.


Happily, for those who find deciding difficult, a Zeret Surprise is on offer, combining various Ethiopian dishes with traditional spongy bread, and if the mood takes you and Ethiopian Coffee Service is available.


For more, see http://zeretkitchen.com/

See the Lego world map

Your author wouldn't usually mention the Southbank Centre twice in a week, but was rather taken with the Lego map of the world currently being displayed, and wanted to write about it before it is dismantled on 26th August.


Assembled with the help of 4,000 members of the public, the map uses over a million lego pieces to reconstruct a world map in 21 colours, and featuring snow-topped mountains and even the Great Wall of China.

For more, see http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/46885/lego-map-of-the-world-completed

Seek out Bernardo O'Higgins

Richmond-on-Thames isn't somewhere you would associate with a Chilean freedom fighter, but then again Bernardo O'Higgins wasn't a particularly ordinary man. Part of the Irish aristocratic O'Higgins family, he was born in the Chilean city of Chillán, and came to London to study in his teens, living in Richmond at 2 The Vineyard, where he is still remembered by a blue plaque.


The son of Ambrosio O'Higgins, an Irish-born Spanish officer who went on to become governor of Chile and viceroy of Peru, Bernardo was a key figure in the fight against the Spanish Government, and after Chile became independent, he became the country's first Head of State in 1818. A statue of Bernardo stands in O'Higgins Square, on the Surrey side of Richmond Bridge.

For more on the man, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardo_O'Higgins

Sit out in the Queen Elizabeth Hall roof garden

Over at the Southbank Centre sometimes they are too creative for their own good, meaning that at any one time they can be doing so many great things your author finds it hard to keep up. This summer, for example, they've refreshed the garden on the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall to grow vegetables and have lawns with real grass.


The project has drawn upon the expertise of Cornwall's Eden Project, using a space built from scratch last year by a team from Providence Row Housing Association and though it's suffering a little as the summer goes on, it is a perfect haven for those seeking to snatch a few minutes with some nature. It's open until 9th September.

For more, see http://www.edenproject.com/blog/index.php/2012/04/eden-gardening-team-helps-reopen-londons-southbank-centre-roof-garden/

See Tom Stoddart's Perspectives

An open air photographic exhibition is well under way at More London, near City Hall and the Scoop, and showcasing the works of respected English photojournalist Tom Stoddart, a man whose photography has taken him around the world since his career began on a local newspaper in the North East in the 1970s.


The exhibition, which continues until 11th September, brings 78 of Stoddart's best black and white photographs for a free exhibition, open to all and to the elements. The exhibition draws - we are told - on Stoddart's travel to 50 countries, documenting historic events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the election of Nelson Mandela and three months of Tony Blair's 1997 campaign.

For more, see http://78perspectives.com/

Find the Ecuadorian Embassy

A few months ago there would have been something completely unremarkable about the address of the Ecuadorian Embassy, situated as it is at Flat 3B, 3 Hans Crescent, SW1X 0LS. In fact it sounds rather more like the venue for a house-party than the foreign mission of a South American nation with a population of more than 15 million.


This week, however, it seems to have become rather more newsworthy, and when your author stumbled upon it rather accidentally yesterday afternoon, it was the scores of satellite vans, sweltering camera crews, vocal protestors and ready police vans that made it clear that this was the place, rather than anything indicative of South American culture.

It seems easier not to comment on the Australian man who has been until recently sleeping on an inflatable camp bed in a tiny room of the flat, even after his decision to stick his head out of the window yesterday afternoon, but your author certainly found it an interesting place to see, as this usually-quiet street behind Harrod's has become - for a while at least - a centre of world news.

For more, see http://ecuador.embassyhomepage.com/#embassy-address-london

Attend the London Mela

Today, out in West London's Gunnersbury Park, the London Mela returns for its 10th anniversary to celebrate music and culture, with a particular focus on the Indian sub continent.


Across nine zones, visitors to the free event can expect music from Jaz Dhami and live band, all female Chinese drumming group Red Poppies, BBC Asian Network DJ, and new talent in the UK from BBC Introducing and DJ Bobby Friction.

For more, see http://www.londonmela.org

_{^Picture © John Pannell used under a Creative Commons license^}

Go to the Carnaval Del Pueblo Latino Festival

Though the failure of everyone's least favourite wasteland-based-dust-bowl has caused the cancellation of the main annual event, Carnaval Del Pueblo are still planning a party today, taking over the Coronet Theatre, close to the Elephant & Castle roundabout, for a Latino Festival.


They're promising a range of top-drawer musicians, free Latin dance classes, DJs all day and even an Andean area, and they probably need your support, promising to unite all communities under one roof.

For more, see http://www.carnavaldelpueblo.co.uk/

_{^Picture © SPakhrin used under a Creative Commons license^}

Find the Young Lovers

Found in Festival Gardens, just to the south east of St Paul's Cathedral is a sculpture by Georg Ehrlich. A celebration of young love, it shows two life-size bronze figures, both naked and seated side-by-side, with their arms around each other in an embrace.



Though Ehrlich died in 1966, the Young Lovers was not erected until 1973, on a section of gardens laid out in 1951 by Sir Albert Richardson, as part of the Corporation of London's contribution to the Festival of Britain.

For more, see http://www.londongardensonline.org.uk/gardens-online-record.asp?ID=COL026

See Ben's boat

As most people will probably have forgotten by now, London hosted the Olympic Games last week, and this morning one of our more successful medal winners - boater Ben Ainslie - will be sailing on the Thames to celebrate his victory.


From 9am this morning, we are told that Mr Ainslie will be bringing a special version of his boat Rita to London to sail the Thames in front of the Houses of Parliament, and the best place to see him will be on Westminster Bridge and along Victoria Embankment between the House of Commons and Westminster Pier. It seems fitting, not least because the boaters spent all the Olympics in Dorset.

For more, see http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/165230/Celebrate-Ben-Ainslies-success

<sub>Update - After your author wrote this article, he was by coincidence contacted by a pr company who offered to let him go on a boat and watch. Though weak will meant this offer was accepted, it had no impact on the article being published here.

^Picture © Rod Allday used under a Creative Commons license^</sub>

Learn about Kingsley Hall

Your author learned rather too late about the Summer Festival at Kingsley Hall in Bow, attending an excellent showing of the play "When Gandhi Met Chaplin" there at the end of last week. Though the festival and play have now finished, the building's fascinating story - and its hosting of Gandhi on a trip to London - is always worth sharing.


Following directly from Doris and Muriel Lester's nursery, which began nearby in 1912, construction of the current building began in July 1927, replacing a former chapel in the area that had been used as a community building. By 1931, the building had already become national news as the place where Indian spiritual and political leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi stayed on a trip to London to attend the Round Table Conference. Gandhi's room is still preserved on the rooftop, surrounded by offices where the Gandhi Foundation now base themselves.

By the 1960s, pioneering psychiatrist and author of The Divided Self R. D. Laing took up residence with others in the building, which became the venue for experimental projects until it was wound up closed and boarded up in the 1970s. Briefly a film set for the filming of Gandhi in the early 1980s, it reopened as a community hall in 1985 and has been operating for the benefit of the local community continuously since then.

For more, see http://www.kingsleyhall.co.uk/