Wander the Great Gallery at the Wallace Collection

The Great Gallery at Hertford House, the home of the Wallace Collection, and is home to many of great seventeenth-century paintings from the Old Masters.


The paintings in the space were collected from various European schools by the 4th Marquess of Hertford, and other members of his family, and are now exhibited daily for free as part of the Wallace Collection's unique offering.

Here, you can see paintings like Frans Hals' The Laughing Cavalier, Titian's
Perseus and Andromeda and Rembrandt's Titus, the Artist's Son.

The collection is free, and is open from 10am until 5pm, every day except 24th, 25th and 26th December. For more information on the Great Gallery, click here.

Visit Kiwi Fruits, the New Zealand Shop

Situated directly beneath New Zealand House, in the Royal Opera Arcade, Kiwi Fruits is a shop which began in 1983 and aims to supply homesick New Zealanders with everything they might need from the motherland.


Most of their offerings are imported directly from New Zealand, with everything from books to food, magazines, native wood crafts, ceramics, souvenirs and jewellery. They even stock traditional bone and pounamu carvings.

Aiming to be a home away from home for New Zealanders in Europe, your author really enjoys these type of shops. It is always very interesting to see people from any country try to create a piece of home in a new land.

For more on Kiwi Fruits, see http://www.kiwifruitsnzshop.com or pop in.

Take a walk in Haggerston Park

Often overlooked due to its funny shape, sports pitches, and proximity to nicer parks, Haggerston Park was previously an industrial area, and the northern half of the site only became a public park in the late 1950s, whilst the southern half wasn't developed for public use in the 1980s.


The industrial part of the park was, according to Wikipedia, once home to derelict housing, a tile factory, and the old Shoreditch gasworks, which had been damaged by a German V-2 rocket in 1944.

One slightly bizarre footnote to its history is that this park was apparently once used by Michael Jackson to land a helicopter with Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse whilst visiting the now closed Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children.

For more of information, see http://www.hackney.gov.uk/cp-haggerston.htm

Tour the East London Mosque

Your author noticed the other day, in the course of his daily browsing, that the East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre, on Whitechapel High Street, are open for visitors this weekend. Given that this is part of his daily commute, it seems too good an opportunity to miss.


The Mosque itself is one of the largest in UK, with a capacity of up to 5000 people. It opened in 1985, and took around three years to build. The London Muslim Centre, meanwhile, is a much newer development having been constructed between 2002 and 2004, at a cost of around £10.5m.

However, the organisation dates back much longer than this, to 1910, when notable local Muslims established the London Mosque Fund to build a mosque. By 1926, the fund had grown considerably, and the first Mosque was opened in three houses on the Commercial Road, E1, in 1941.

For more details of the opening, which includes guided tours, see http://www.eastlondonmosque.org.uk/news/288

_{^Picture © diamond geezer used under Creative Commons^}

See Move: Choreographing You at the Hayward

Your author has always been a big kid when it comes to installation art, and as such the latest offering from the Southbank Centre's Hayward Gallery, titled Move: Choreographing You, is exactly the sort of thing which he likes.


Visitors are offered the chance to interact with a real variety of installations and sculptures by visual artists from around the world. It is great fun, and with hula-hoops, see-saws, climbing rings and ball rooms, you are given opportunities to do things normally reserved for children. The only problem is that they also allow children in.

A highlight for your author was Isaac Julien's Ten Thousand Waves which presents three gripping stories over nine free-hanging screens in a fifty-minute film which draws upon the Morecambe Bay tragedy, when a team of Chinese cockle-pickers perished as tides rose. This, combined with stories from Shanghai and rural China, could have kept the audience there for hours.

For more on the show, which costs £11 and runs until Sunday 9th January 2011, click here.

Stay at the Tune Hotel

Having heard a lot about the new branch of Malaysian budget hotel chain Tune Hotels which has opened in Lambeth, in the shadow of Waterloo Station, your author was keen to find out what it was actually like. Thankfully, the chain's marketing people were very keen on this idea and your author ended up spending Sunday night there.


The rooms themselves are, as readers might expect, rather pokey, and the bathroom similarly tiny, but when you are looking for a budget room this is usually acceptable. However, the fact that you have to pay for extras like the TV, or even a towel, does seem a bit steep, especially when the cheapest you seem to be able to get a room for is the £49 your author would have paid if he hadn't been on a freebie.

However, London does have a shortage of hotel rooms, especially at the lower end of the market, and this one is centrally located, clean and ticks the necessary box of being a place where you can sleep, which is often all budget customers are looking for. And the beds, in which they have invested a fair amount in order to keep banging on about them in all their marketing, were nice enough.

Your author just can't work out how they have the nerve to say the hotel is in Westminster. Admittedly it's less than ten minutes walk to the bridge, but this hotel is most definitely above a Costa in Lambeth. And there's nothing wrong with that. For more on the Tune Hotel see Bryony Gordon's bit in the Telegraph here, some photos here, or the website here.

Browse the art at the William Weston Gallery

Founded in 1967, and named after its owner, the William Weston Gallery is located in the Royal Arcade, W1, and prides itself on being the longest established specialist gallery in England dealing in European and British Master Prints.


It is a commercial art gallery, but boasts that works which once hung on its walls are now in more than 50 museums and public collections around the country, and that Mr Weston himself is often called upon to act as a consultant and valuations advisor for 'proper' galleries and museums.

It's a pleasant little space, and only takes a few minutes to browse the works on offer, unless you're trying to prove that you really know about art, in which case you have to stare for ages. All the works, when your author popped in last week, were sadly beyond his means, but probably best that it is left to other people to buy them anyway. They will appreciate them more.

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

Visit the South Bank German Market

Your author is reluctant to feature anything which bills itself as 'Christmas' themed so early in the year, but there is something rather pleasant about wandering the German Market which set up on the South Bank last week.


With the temperatures now distinctly wintry, you have to take your chances to be in the open air where you can get them, and the market at least lets you sip warming Glühwein in an M.D.F. 'Chalet', or take your pick of ales from the Outside Inn.

There are also various German and non-German foodstalls, selling Bratwurst and other dishes which appear to vary in quality between tasty-looking and pretty ropey. There are, of course, also the usual tat and gift stalls, and also an awful-sounding 'Santa’s Secret Village', which should be avoided like the plague.

It's a nice spot if you're looking for somewhere to wander, but it will probably get busier and you will only want to go once. Now in its third year, the market is only featured here to get it over with before the decent seasonal-offerings open up.

For more, see here.

Shop for hardware at David Penton & Son

David Penton & Son, otherwise known as Penton's Hardware, is a great little hardware store that sells everything from screws to stepladders, as well as electrical and plumbing wares. Established in 1841, it has now been serving loyal locals for nearly 170 years


Your author has always been a fan of independent traders, and during a walk over the weekend was pleased to stumble across it, and some other excellent little shops, on Marylebone Lan, W1.

The window, and the interior, are absolutely brim-full of all different kinds of hardware, and if there is anything they don't have they are more than happy to order it in for you.

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

Go sailing at Queen Mary Reservoir

Amongst the largest inside the M25, Queen Mary Reservoir is in outer London, just to the west of the M3. It covers 700 acres, and has been providing water for thirsty Londoners since 1922.


For some, however, that is not enough, and the Queen Mary Sailing Club have been taking to the water since founded in 1972, and have been providing full programmes of racing and training since then.

Whilst learners must take lessons, competent sailors can apply for day membership for £12 during the week, or £16 on the weekend, and the club has a range of equipment available for hire, providing you can prove your credentials and subject to the discretion of the duty officer.

Admittedly, it all sounds a bit chilly for this time of year but some people love that sort of thing, so if it takes your fancy examine the website at http://www.queenmary.org.uk


_{^Picture © Martyn Davies, used under Creative Commons^}

See Wendy Taylor's Timepiece

It wasn't that sunny when your author last visited, but Wendy Taylor's Timepiece sundial, installed in 1973 beside the lock where St Katharine's Dock joins the Thames, is certainly striking.


The dial is apparently, a large equinoctial sundial around 3.66 metres across, and in the form of a stainless steel ring, which is supported by three rigid chain link cables.

For more on Wendy's work, see http://wendytaylorsculpture.co.uk/

Escape the crowds at the Carpenters Arms, Seymour Place

A short distance from the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street, and Edgware Road, the Carpenters Arms, in Seymour Place, W1, is a great little pub that provides a haven from all those people buying things they don't need.


Apparently established in 1776, and rebuilt in 1872, it is owned by Market Tavern, a small family-run pubco, with establishments in various places.

It claims to be home to the London branch of the Campaign for Real Ale, and whilst your author isn't sure if this is correct, it does have some fantastic ales on tap and the array of pump clips on show is a testament to this.

It's also a sport pub, but not in an overbearing way, and when your author was last in it had a mixed crowd of after-workers and all-dayers pleasantly whiling away their time.

For more, see http://www.markettaverns.co.uk/The-Carpenters-Arms/index.html

Watch a play at the Half Moon Theatre

The Half Moon Young People's Theatre, at 43 White Horse Road, in Limehouse, was first established in the 1970s as part of the now defunct Half Moon Repertory Theatre. When it's parent theatre went into liquidation in 1989, the youth branch struggled on, establishing itself independently in 1990.


Since then, the theatre moved to its its current premises in 1994 with an injection of cash from the London Docklands Development Corporation and European and Social Regeneration funds, and has been carrying out its mission of using drama and theatre to aid the learning and engaging of young people, and putting on seasons of productions which are open to the public.

If it sounds like your sort of thing, tickets are around the budget-friendly £6 mark and it's a short walk from Limehouse DLR. You can find out more at http://www.halfmoon.org.uk/

Visit St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney

Apparently a place of worship for over a thousand years, the first church was built on the present site of site of St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney, 'sometime between St Augustine's conversion of the English in the 6th century, and 952 when a second church was erected on the site by St Dunstan', which is fantastically vague.


Your author doesn't have religion, but it is getting to be a bit of a habit to examine church histories here, so let's take the time to examine St Dunstan's, Stepney.

Originally called All Saints, the church was probably named after St Dunstan, the former Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London, at some point following his death in 1029, and in 1896 the names were combined. The only part of the original church which survives is a tenth century stone relief panel of the Crucifixion, beneath the east window.

The 'modern' church was built between the thirteenth century, when the chancel was built, and the fifteenth century, when the nave was built, to serve residents in what was then a country retreat. As such, it is notable for having survived both the Great Fire of London and the Blitz.

For more on St Dunstan and All Saints, visit the website here.

Drink at the Stafford's American Bar

The American Bar, at the Stafford Hotel in Mayfair, dates back to the 1930s, and since the 1970s has been the venue of an interesting tradition. Started when West End hotels began looking to the increasing American market arriving by ocean liner, it is now more famous for the tradition of guests leaving personal gifts for the hotel, which have over the years covered the walls and ceiling.


Your author popped in the other night with Rajul from London Hotel Insight, and found a spot amongst all the paraphernalia for a very pleasant drink, attended to by Benoit Provost, the head barman who has been at The Stafford for 12 years. The tradition began, we are told, when the walls were so bare that an American guest gave Benoit's predecessor a small wooden American eagle. This was duly followed by an eskimo, given by a Canadian, and a Kangaroo, given by an Australian.

Today, the bar is covered with yacht club flags, signed photographs and historical artefacts. These are kept alongside glasses which various royals have used on their visits, model aircraft from pilots who drank at the bar during the Second World War, given on their returns, and photographs of Nancy Wake, the highest decorated woman of the Second World War, who drank here when it was run by Louis Burdet, famous for his time as a leader of the French Resistance.

The only downside is the cost of drinks. This being a hotel in Mayfair, a pint is at least £5, so it's currently more like drinking in the Euro-zone than in America, and there is also the dress code - Jackets are mandatory for men. All this, and your author can't help wondering who will be the first hotel to beat the rush to designate a "Chinese Bar".

For more on the American bar, and see some better pictures, click here.