Two London Weekends

Went to the Christmas party of the firm I'm joining in April which was a lovely affair - excellent to meet some more of my future colleagues in such convivial surrounds. Following day went to Wallace Collection, saw the exhibition of drawings from Versailles, then to Tate Mod for David Smith sculpture exhib.

Following day, MJ and I went with people from the London Art Club on a tour of several galleries in the East End. They were cool. The galleries, that is. The people were, on average, kinda cool - the organiser James is very cool plus he has a cool bike.

The first place we went to, the Three Dogs Lane gallery, was in an industrial estate, inside a great big rusty building. MJ and I were slightly late and, after receiving instructions by phone ("it's inside the industrial estate on three dogs lane, after that it's really hard to find, there are some arrows but it's really complicated, good luck"), we had to navigate through a series of staircases and corridors til we finally found the gallery. I was reminded of Lynn Barber's article in the observer about how much fun she had as a Turner Prize judge. Describing finding galleries:
"Many of them were shut; a lot were simply unfindable, even with a map. (It is part of the mystique of 'edgy' galleries to hide in warehouses and lock-ups with no visible means of ingress.)"
Molto authentico.

Checked out Vyner St, supposedly highest concentration of galleries in London. "Vyner Street in Hackney is supposed to contain a dozen galleries but even after a year I only found six."

We saw six without looking too hard so i don't know what she was on about. Quite a cool range of exhibitions: best one was pictures of monkeys.

Here's Vyner st on a slightly more appealing day. Pretty unassuming.

The next week we had a Micromechanics end-of-year dinner - not too Christmassy (i.e. at a curry house) but most enjoyable.

Back to London the next morning with the culture-vulture A-team. First stop British Museum.

Saw an exhibition "The Past from Above", spectacular aerial photographs by Georg Gerster of archaeological sites all around the world. Great to be able to see the photos of the sites then go downstairs and check out artifacts from many of them also.

Went to Somerset House to see Courtald Collection, then over to the East India Club to reminisce about the last days of the Raj, what what. Here the chaps assemble for a group portrait photogram - all boys, because girls aren't allowed - and rightly so.

Went to see The Mousetrap - longest running play in the West End (and holder of that title for some 35 years now). It's worth seeing for that reason, and not many others. The guy behind us snoring loudly in the first half evidently concurred. Concluded evening with trail of debauchery leading from Clapham Common to Hackney Town Hall via the Tower of London and St Katherine's docks.

Went to the Rodin exhibition at the Royal Academy, one of the best exhibitions i've been to this year - and quite a few real works of art ;) too, before heading home (via Sainsbury's in Angel as i'd left things a little late for the early-closing shops of rural Cambridge) to cook a dinner party: Thai crab and prawn salad, Moroccan lamb shanks with lemon, olives and couscous.