Attend a winter wildlife open day at Stoke Newington East Reservoir

A special open day is being held at the London Wildlife Trust's Stoke Newington East Reservoir Community Garden today, with bird watching hot drinks and bird bingo on offer for visitors.


The day continues until 3pm, and promises to connect you with winter wildlife, but the garden itself is open daily and you can visit at any time.

For more, see http://www.wildlondon.org.uk/events/2014/01/27/winter-wildlife-open-day

_{^Picture © ㇹヮィㇳ used under a Creative Commons license^}

Take an evening spotlight tour at the British Museum

The British Museum is currently open until 8.30pm on Fridays, offering a chance to tour one of the world's most visited museums after work, and if you want a new perspective on galleries you may have been through countless time before, three 'spotlight' tours will be running this evening, with volunteer guides helping visitors to better understand certain objects and periods.


The tours are free and you can learn about the Rosetta Stone at 17.00 and 17.30, the Parthenon at 17.00 and 17.30 and the Enlightenment at 18.30 and 19.00, in the company of knowledgeable guides. Just meet in the relevant gallery a few minutes before the time listed above.

For more, see http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/friday_lates_programme.aspx

Drink gin at Charles Dickens' House

It's good when you get organised and buy tickets well in advance, and so this evening your author is off to 48 Doughty Street, Charles Dickens' former home and now the location of the Charles Dickens Museum, for an evening visit featuring gin and live music. If you judge it only by the number of pubs he drank at, Dickens seemed to like a drink, and we know he visited gin shops as he described them in Sketches by Boz.


But if you fancy it and haven't already booked tickets, all is not lost, for this morning they were still available to buy directly from the Museum website. They cost only £15, which is admittedly more than the usual £8 bargain for ordinary entry to the museum, but here the ticket price includes a drink, access to a special gin bar with live music, a bookbinding workshops and a chance to take home your own handmade journal.

For more, see http://www.dickensmuseum.com/events/no-48-doughty-st-and-no-3-gin-present-the-literary-gin-palace/

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

See Sir John Soane's Tomb

It won't be a surprise to most who are aware of his work that Sir John Soane, the celebrated architect of the Bank of England and the Dulwich Picture Gallery and creator of the collection that has become the Sir John Soane Museum, came to design his own tomb, which is Grade I listed and sits within the churchyard of St Pancras Old Church, one of the oldest places of Christian worship in London, between King's Cross and Camden. However, it was actually built before his death for his wife, and completed in 1816, more than 20 years before his death.


After Elizabeth Soane died in 1815 she was buried in the churchyard, with Soane describing it as 'The burial of all that is dear to me in this world, and all I wished to live for!'. The tomb was designed to sit above the vault in which Elizabeth was interred, and it was constructed in Carrara marble and Portland Stone. We are told that the Tomb's design was a direct influence on Giles Gilbert Scott's telephone box design, and is one of only two Grade I listed monuments in London, the other being Karl Marx's tomb in Highgate.

For more, see http://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/soane-s-tomb

Set your watch by the Shepherd Gate Clock

Constructed and installed by Charles Shepherd in 1852, the Shepherd Gate Clock outside the gates at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich was one of the first electrically-driven public clocks, and one of the first to display Greenwich Mean Time to the public.


Unusual due to its 24-hour analogue dial, which always displays Greenwich Mean Time rather than switching to British Summer Time, the clock was originally networked to a number of other clocks around the Observatory, in a system Shepherd had demonstrated at the Great Exhibition where he had been responsible for installing public clocks.

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

Eat at Adulis Eritrean Restaurant

Trading since 1996 from their restaurant and bar on Brixton Road near Oval Station, Adulis takes its name from an ancient port city on the Red Sea in what was then the Kingdom of Aksum, 30 miles south of the modern Eritrean city of Massawa.


The restaurant has styled itself as 'London's Little Eritrea' and whilst various other Eritrean restaurants do exist in London, this one is certainly competitive, serving up decent Eritrean specialities with spongy Injera bread in pleasant surroundings for a reasonable price.

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


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

Forage on the foreshore

A month ago, your author joined Jane Parker (aka Amelia Parker) and friends at Rotherhithe for a walk along the foreshore and thoroughly enjoyed it. Jane's company Amelia Parker creates jewellery and other gifts from clay pipes found on the Thames Foreshore and sells them at regular markets and in her Etsy shop.


Today, Jane has organised another of her monthly foraging trips, which are open to all. Walkers meet at 11am in the City of London so you'll have to be quick if you want to join this trip. Email jane@amelia-parker.com for full details of this or future forages now.

For more, see https://www.facebook.com/events/241794062667655/ or http://www.amelia-parker.com/

Join the Waitangi Day Pub Crawl

For more than 30 years New Zealanders in London have been celebrating the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document of New Zealand, with a pub crawl. This year's pub crawl, following the Circle Line as has become traditional, begins at the Pride of Paddington at 10am.


The day finishes up with a Haka at 4pm at Old Palace Yard, just off Parliament Square, and other pubs that will form part of the rough route include the Bayswater Arms in Bayswater, The Old Swan near Notting Hill Station, the Prince of Wales near High Street Kensington station, the Stanhope Arms near Gloucester Road station, the Zetland Arms near South Kensington station, the Duke of York near Victoria station and The Old Star near St James Park station.

For more, see https://www.facebook.com/waitangidaypubcrawl

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

Attend the London Orchard Project Wassail Party

In apple-growing areas there has long been a tradition of orchard wassailing, to bless cider orchards for the forthcoming year, with singing, poetry, dance and drinking. This evening, Alara Wholefoods and the London Orchard Project have invited us all to take part in a London Wassail, with fire, music, cider and food.


For some years now, Alara Wholefoods on Camley Street have been creating gardens in their spare time, using unused land around commercial buildings on an industrial estate just to the north of King's Cross. It appears the Wassail is being held at their "young orchard", and on their site, much as their 2013 wassail was.

For more, see https://www.facebook.com/events/222824787841150/?fref=ts

Eat at Terry's Cafe

Opened in 1982 by south Londoner and former Smithfield market butcher and pig farmer Terry Yardley, Terry's Cafe in Great Suffolk Street, a short walk from Borough Tube Station, is a characterful and timeless place adorned with old photographs, union jacks and well-turned-out staff, and serving good food six days a week from 7am - 2pm, Monday to Friday, and 7:30am - 12 noon on Saturdays. Though Terry himself passed away back in 2010, we are told that the cafe is now run by his son, Austin Yardley, who has worked in the family business since he was a young boy.


It isn't hard to see why Austin decided to take on the family business, and when your author dropped in recently a little after 7am the cafe was already fairly busy, and was turning out good food at reasonable prices as it has for more than 20 years. Some say Terry's is among the best breakfast fry-ups in London and though your author never really likes to choose the best of anything, it was certainly a great feed.

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

Learn about money at St Paul's

If you can get there, Felix Martin, author of 'Money: the Unauthorised Biography' gives a talk at St Paul's Cathedral this evening, open to all-comers. We are told will cover the nature of money and the mythologies that we build around it, in a venue fittingly at the heart of the City and only thirty second's walk from the London Stock Exchange.


The free talk is this evening from 6:30pm - 7:30pm and promises to use stories from throughout history and all corners of the world to change our understanding of the world and its money. Booking is essential.

For more, see http://www.stpauls.co.uk/Visits-Events/Special-Services-Events/Lecture-What-is-Moneyand-Why-Does-it-Matter

Admire Boris Anrep's National Gallery Mosaics

Some of your author's favourite artworks at the National Gallery are found not hanging on a wall or standing on a plinth, but instead beneath the feet of the hundreds and thousands of who enter via the Gallery's Portico entrance each day. Four mosaics by Russian-born artist Boris Anrep were installed between 1928 and 1952. First came, 'The Labours of Life' and 'The Pleasures of Life', installed in 1928-9 and then 'The Awakening of the Muses' on the half-way landing, featuring Clive Bell as Bacchus, Diana Mitford as Polyhymnia, Virginia Woolf as Clio and Greta Garbo as Melpomene.


The final mosaic, 'The Modern Virtues', did not arrive until after the Second World War, and features among others, Sir Winston Churchill as defiance, fighting a beast in a shape of swastika, T. S. Eliot as Leisure and Bertrand Russell as Lucidity.

For more, see http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/sculptures-and-mosaics/


^Picture by Mike Quinn used under a Creative Commons license^

Climb the King's Cross Viewing Platform

Though Central Saint Martins moved to their new buildings at Granary Square in 2011 and the new King's Cross concourse opened in Spring 2012, much of the area is still building site. In fact, it is one of the largest areas of urban redevelopment in Europe, as you can observe from a specially-installed viewing platform at the junction of King's Boulevard and Goods Way.


A friend recently told your author that the installation of viewing windows on building sites is evidence of the progress of humanity and perhaps this platform is evidence of an even more civilised development. The Goods Way viewing platform is made of old shipping containers you can peer into building sites to the south and east, or look north and across Granary Square and the canal to the UAL Central St Martin's buildings or west to Camley Street nature park.

For more, see http://www.kingscross.co.uk/the-development

Celebrate Chinese New Year

Today is the day of the main Chinese New Year celebrations in London, centred around Gerrard Street in Soho and Trafalgar Square in Westminster. We are told to expect a parade from 10am with the official opening ceremony at noon launching the celebrations in Trafalgar Square.


Among a fantastic range of events, we are told that there will be acrobatics, traditional dances and a lion dance from Chinese performers. A group of visiting children from Nanjing performing their Little Red Flower Art Troupe variety show, a traditional Chinese Opera, craft stalls and food stands, and a mini festival in Horse & Dolphin Yard with tombola, piñata, calligraphy and live performances.

For full details, see http://www.chinatownlondon.org/news/details-confirmed-for-chinese-new-year/48/428

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

Take a guided walk in Richmond Park

The Friends of Richmond Park offer a guided walk in one of London's finest parks this morning from 10am - noon, meeting at Pembroke Lodge car park. The walk is free and is part of a regular series of events run by the Friends, which all look fantastic.


Should you be interested in joining the Friends, you would also be able to take part in upcoming courses, including Birds of Richmond Park and Spring Birds & Bird Song, but most of the programme looks good. The 5am Dawn Chorus Walk on 21st April looks particularly enticing.

For more, see http://www.frp.org.uk/walks