Winter Lights at Canary Wharf until Saturday

Wrap up warm and get over to Canary Wharf to see the fabulous light installations dotted all around the area, both outdoors and in.
More info here.
Be sure to print out the map to be able to follow the route as it makes it so much simpler following the recommended trail.
Here's some pics from my visit two years ago

Happy birthday to me – Memories of Edinburgh Festival 2002 and pre-selfie selfies

Blimey doen't time fly?!
Someone told me recently that they were going to the Edinburgh festival this year and it reminded me of 15 years ago when I was there as a Perrier Awards comedy judge.
Yes folks, you read that right. I won one of the two 'members of the public' London positions (there was also a winner from Scotland) in a Time Out competition – the brief was to write a letter explaining why I was the best candidate for the job. My opening line began with, "my friends say I have an opinion on everything..." and I just knew when I sent it in that I was onto a winner. I had a gut feeling and I was right. I beat thousands of people to the post.

Top centre: me with my VIP awards night ticket and wandering about in Edinburgh. 
Middle row: Daniel Kitson accepting the winner's awards, me with Reg D. Hunter and his friend, and with Trevor and Simon (our pants are swinging just out of shot).
Bottom row: two comedians (oops, I have forgotten their names; a young Canadian and an America) and the lovely, shy and very clever Mr Rich Hall

Us judges were given lovely rented homes for the fortnight with VIP entrance to all the evening dos and backstage bars, travel expenses etc.
Seeing all those comedy shows was hard work though – it involved running back and forth across Edinburgh seeing five or six shows a day, and many of them not in the least bit amusing. At times I started to think I had forgotten how to laugh with my face stuck in rictus.
The thing is though, it was fifteen years ago. Eh? How did that happen? And whilst I was there I turned 40 – what a great way to celebrate – I thought winning that judging gig was one of my best birthday presents ever.
OK... now for the next batch of photos... You'll notice they all have something in common, and I don't just mean how some of the people in them have, er, changed over the years...

Me and... Dave Gorman, Nina Conti, Dara O'Briain, Hal Cruttenden, Jimmy Carr, Phil Nichol, Noel Fielding, Stephen Frost and Brendan Burns. (How did I not get a pic of lovely Sean Lock?!)

... notice that they are all close-ups and I am in every photo – that's because I am taking the photos – in other words, these are selfies before the word was invented.
For decades I have been using regular cameras to take photos of myself alongside friends or places without the need of a viewfinder/screen. Also, note that all the pics above are taken with a film camera – one shot, no deletes, no retakes, no post-production, no editing. Good aren't they?
I will dig out some earlier 'old-school selfies' when I get a mo.
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me....

Cally Festival – Sunday 18th June

A section of Caledonian Road will be closed to traffic this Sunday for the yearly street festival which takes place between noon and 6pm.
It's basically a vibrant community-led street party – there will be all sorts of stalls lining the road plus live music, arts projects, dancing and creative workshops.
Find me at my stall selling my cards and prints of photos I have taken in the area including some new ones.

A selection of new cards (prints to order)

  

Craft Fair at Hornsey Town Hall this weekend

A bit of self promo today...
Find me selling my cards and prints within the Art Deco splendour of Hornsey Town Hall on Crouch End Broadway, 11am–4pm on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th June.

Please see the Facebook page here for more card images.
I will also have a small selection of clay pipe jewellery and cards and some upcycled leather wallets from my Amelia Parker range.

If you can't get to the event find the cards just round the corner from the town hall at Treehouse gift shop and Oxfam Books & Music both at the clocktower end of Park Road.
For online orders, visit my Etsy shop (if you don't see the image you require listed, please do contact me directly)

Whitecross Street Party this Saturday 16th July

AKA The Rise of the Non-Conformists – this is a colourful, vibrant, musical event is well worth a visit.
I will have a stall there and, in addition to a selection of my clay pipe jewellery, I will for the first time be selling my  London Central cards featuring St Pauls, Barbican, Battersea Power Station and the like, as well a selection of the North London ones (click the image of them, above right).
Here is a link to a post I did about this event in 2013.
I have only just realised as I was writing that this follows on from my last post about Old Street as Whitecross Street is on its south side almost opposite St Luke's Church, so after or pre the street party why not go check out those cart entrances and unusual signs etc...?

Unrestricted View – a film festival at Hen and Chickens Theatre, 25th April – 1st May

The Hen and Chickens Theatre Pub is well-known for being the starting ground for many new productions. It's where small theatre projects have begun and comedians both new and established have honed their craft in front of a small audience. Now the H+C is showing films.
Tonight sees the start of Unrestricted View, a week of eclectic movies of varying length carefully selected from a long list of submissions. Highlights of the full programme include: Set Fire to the Stars starring Elijah Wood which will opening the Festival and Men & Chicken starring Mads Mikkelson closing the festival. High points of the festival include Bradley Walsh in The Lights, Catherine Tate & Alex McQueen in Not Sophie's Choice, Richard Glover in The John and Indira Varma in Vintage Blood.
See the full programme here. I will be there this evening so do say hello if you see me.
It's also worth mentioning that there will be special drink offers to tie in with each film and craft beers available.

London Lumiere – a review

Malcolm and I decided to spend two evenings taking in as much of this event as possible.

Friday 15th January
We first went to see the installation at Oxford Circus. It was marvellous and we admired the colour-changing mesh for perhaps ten minutes and then moved off to find new things, thinking that everything would be up to that standard. But no. I think we peaked too early...

We looked for something at Liberty's. We spotted a crowd of people at a window and could make out what we think was a dress in a window. The pic shown here isn't mine; it's one from their website that was at Granary Square (see also KX later on). So we moved on to Brown Hart Gardens where some cute little bird boxes edged the upper level, but that was it. Did we miss something better?
In Grosvenor Square lots of people were queuing to get inside the square at each of the four corners. Peering over the hedges it didn't look very busy in there and from what we could see it didn't look worth the scrum, so we gave up and went to see what everyone was crowding around on the south east corner; an illuminated old telephone box containing fish. This looked good (see pic above from Lumiere website) but, again, being a small installation it was hard to get anywhere near it. Shame.

And so to Piccadilly. A Tracy Emin-style neon script saying something supposed to be clever was on each end of Piccadilly Arcade. Hmmm. We moved swiftly past and stopped to watch the colourful projection on the Bafta building. The short looped animation was good and showed famous actors and relevant motifs about them and their films, but apart from Tilda Swinton and only a few others it was really hard to make out who the people were as we were too close to view it properly even though we rammed ourselves up against the shops on the opposite side of the road. For instance, just who is that woman above left? Basically, the thing was too big. We, and the people around us, all agreed it was better to see what was going on if you watched it through a camera screen to get a better/smaller image. I thought the light well below my feet was also worthy of a pic.

I did like the lovely lanterns and flying fish kites at the eastern end of Piccadilly. Simple, mesmerising, effective and easy to see from a distance. It was this kind of thing that always made the parade at the end of The Mayor's Thames Festival such a delight.
We really enjoyed being able to walk in the road, as at Oxford Circus and Regent Street.
The loud trumpeting of an elephant pervaded the air. And above Air Street (see what I did there?!) there was an animated CGI projection of an elephant's arse swaying left and right.

We walked through to Regents Street to view the front of the elephant. The street was rammed with people watching it. I stood and wondered what the point of it was. This was a recurring thought over both evenings. I mean, what relevance did an elephant have in that place? It wasn't even a real elephant. Had it not been there in that position on that night would anyone have given it a second thought?
We forgot to look in at St James Square and somehow bypassed the light flowers at Leicester Square and headed for Trafalgar Square.

Here, the letters from the top of Centrepoint, which is being renovated at the moment, were placed against the wall of the National Gallery. Watching the people, I noticed the thing to do here was stand against it and either take a selfie or get a friend to take a shot. It's all about the me me me these days. Intrigued how all these these idiots would get would be themselves as silhouettes against the bright light (pic1) I attempted to do better myself (pic2), but found it more effective to use the lights properly (pic3).
The fountains in the square also had installations:

One was filled with empty plastic water bottles; rubbish as art. The other had two rings of light strings and some chicken wire mesh that I couldn't see the point of. Both looked as if someone had thought, quick, quick, we need to think of something for Trafalgar Square...!
At Coutts Bank, just around the corner in the Strand, there were some neon dogs that looked like bows. We couldn't see them; again, the installation was small and the crowd blocked the view. I wasn't bow-wowed.
Enough for one night. A beer in the Nellie Dean to warm up and discuss the above and then home.

Saturday 16th January
We met at Victoria and walked down to see the projection on Westminster Abbey.

WOW!  A lot of work had gone into this. Very clever. The front façade changed by the second and the sculptures of the people around the door had been carefully coloured in and then accurately projected onto the building to marvellous effect. Really beautiful. I was actually inspired; for I think that was the point of all this
And so we made our way to Kings Cross. The tube station was closed (due to over-crowding?) so we exited at Euston and mooched along with the crowds. At KX the first thing we encountered was the birdcage, a permanent feature, which had been given a simple rainbow light treatment. On the rear of the German Gymnasium (now yet another eatery; I liked it when it was an art space) there was a projection consisting of series of moving dots that on closer inspection were people in the gym. A nice idea, but it seemed to be lacking something.

There were lots of people there and it took a while to access Granary Square, but we felt it wasn't what has been reported as 'crowded'. I suspect this was just on the tube, in the station and in the narrow access sections and pathways.
A large-scale animation was being projected onto what is now St Martin's School of Art. This was like the one when Madness played Our House on Buckingham Palace for Queenie's birthday except that it had no relevance to art, Kings Cross, or much to do with London except a few tube stations and hints about Hyde Park. It was circus-themed with hybrid 2D animals and birds performing tricks. I felt it was kooky French(?) humour mixed with Peter Blake and I got bored with it about half-way thorough. Again, what was the point? Was it promoting? What was it trying to achieve?
Between the art school and Waitrose was a strange satellite dish thing; it moved around, it spun slowly, it reflected lights. The roof there is angled and so I think a lot of its impact may have been lost in that placement. The music was oooooh-aaaa and it evoked sci-fi films and having stood there for what seemed ages, we rather hoped that an alien might appear, or that lasers would shoot out from it and decapitate people. Now that would be art, and we had our cameras at the ready. But no.
Later we read that the thing reacted to movement around it. Well, had they made that clear on site perhaps people might have moved about instead of just gazing gormlessly at it waiting for something to happen.

At the northernmost point there was a neon art installation of a person diving. Hmm. Seen better. Move on. And then we found that colour-changing dress (like the one at Liberty's, mentioned above). We could only see the straps of it due to the amount of people there.
Inside St Martin's was a lovely installation – a light tunnel made from recycled plastic bottles filled with water. This really appealed to me, both artistically and ethically, and I felt I'd finally found something with a message and a function. Truly inspirational. We didn't bother queueing to walk through the tunnel as it looked so nice from the outside. Again, it was selfies-a-go-go, so I joined in.
On the walk back to the station we bypassed the colourful lights being reflected onto people though they did look good and would have been better placed in a larger environment. It reminded me of a a rave party (not that I have been to any) or that Indian festival where everyone throws paint powder, But the path was too congested so descended the stairs to he new foot tunnel that leads to the tube station.

And I like it. I think this one will remain. Seems daft if it doesn't stay cos the softly-changing coloured lights are all embedded behind white walls. Looking straight at a wall it just looks white, but look along it and see vertical panels of colour. Ooh – a vast improvement from those horrid little off-white bathroom-style mini tiles they have put everywhere else in Kings Cross tube station; they were poorly installed and have become so mucky so quickly.
And so our two evenings ended.

Conclusion
So, in no particular order, my favourite things were Westminster Abbey, the flying fish, the mesh at Oxford Circus, the bottle tunnel, KX tunnel, and being able to get up close to the Centrepoint lights.
Did I feel enLIGHTened by all this? Yes and no, but mainly no. Ultimately I was more impressed looking up at the beautifully-designed ceiling at Kings Cross station.

Bloomsbury Festival, 22–25 October 2015

A creative explosion of performance, arts, music and heritage events held in the streets, parks, museums, galleries, laboratories and public and private buildings of one of London’s most vibrant cultural quarters. 
Read all about it here.
On Friday 23 October, Store Street will be taken over by artists and pyrotechnic gurus pa-BOOM for a spectacular launch evening*. I notice that the image on the page that talks about this particular event looks to be by the same artists who filled the garden in front of Tate Modern as part of the Thames Festival back 2009 (when it used to be good):

Pics: Jane Amelia Parker 2009

*It seems odd to me that the launch evening is happening on what appears top be the second day, but what do I know...?!  

Holloway Hullabaloo and The Big Day out in Whittington Park

My local arts festival is now in full swing.

On Sunday, 7th June, there will be a vibrant street party called The Holloway Hullabaloo (try saying that when you're drunk!) in Hornsey Street (at the side of Holloway Road tube station) and I will have a table there selling some of my photographs as prints and greeting cards, plus a small range of my clay pipe jewellery, accessories and cards.
I will also be at The Big Day Out in Whittington Park, near Upper Holloway train station (map), on Saturday 13th June where there will be stalls, entertainment, a dog show and much more.
Hope you can come along.
Here are some pics from last year:

Hornsey Street on the left hand side and Whittington Park bottom right

Canalway Cavalcade 2015 – Little Venice, May Bank Holiday Weekend

Three days of colourful boats, stalls, music, demonstrations, food, dancing and lots more this weekend 2nd, 3rd and 4th May at the canal basin at Little Venice.
More info here.
Hope to see you there – come and find me at my stall on Warwick Crescent overlooking the boats.
Oh, I almost forgot – please bring a pint of ale with you ;-)

Angel Canal Festival, Sunday 7th September

This Sunday come and find me at my stall on Danbury Road bridge at the Angel Canal Festival. The event takes place around the the local streets bordering Regent's Canal, Graham Street Park and City Road Basin.

Top row: Danbury Road

Second row: City Road Basin where some large developments are being constructed at the moment. I am intrigued by 'Canaletto' as a choice of name as this rather infers he lived here. This is also the first time I have seen the use of the phrase 'limited edition' in this sense. Lexicon is the name given to the huge tower being constructed next door. Lexicon means 'a wordbook or dictionary' or 'the vocabulary of a certain language'. I can think of lots of word to describe it in a very colourful language.

Some more interesting things in the vicinity

Whitecross Street Party 2014

The Whitecross Street Party 2014 – Rise of the Non-conformists is a fab fun colourful central London street festival for all ages. and it's happens this weekend 19th and 20th July.
It doesn't seem like a year since last year's great event which is shown in the pics above.
See you there – I will have a stall again – if I get time I will be also selling some photographic collections of the local area as well as the usual clay pipe stuff.

Canalway Cavalcade at Little Venice

A great event takes place this Bank Holiday weekend in and around the canal junction of Little Venice.
From Saturday 3rd until Monday 5th May you will find all sorts of attractions on the water and the surrounding roads and towpaths. These include pageants, entertainment, boat trips, foods, stalls, music and dance.
Find out more here.

 Some of my London canal photos, from Limehouse Basin to Little Venice

Bloomsbury Festival – last day today

Today is the last day of the excellent (8th) Bloomsbury Festival.
Yesterday afternoon I went to the festival in Russell Square (London's largest). There is so much to see and do in the square as the event includes some fabulous information and educational tents where you can learn about mathematics, the body, drawing, dancing, science, ecology, recycling andplenty more. Plus the usual live music performances, craft stalls, a book tent and of course, a beer tent.
You have until 5.30pm to get there... take a brolly just incase. It's not muddy, there are paths plus extra temporary plastic paths joining the tents which are carpeted inside... the organisers seem to have thought of everything, though I hope those carpets get cleaned and reused to keep inline with the ethos of the event.
Here are some of the pics I took yesterday which include a rather interesting 'female' tree. Is it just me who notices these things?

Review of this year's Thames' Festival – a washout in many respects

This year The Mayor's Thames Festival took place over 10 days, rather than one glorious fun-packed weekend as in the past. The rationale was to spread out the events along the river to include places further up- and down-stream.
But I think this backfired. The event (I can't really use the word 'festival') was, to my mind a wash out, and not just because of the weather.
I can understand that many attractions at the Thames Festival have, in the past  had little to do with the River, but they get people out and animated and interested in places and things they might never have noticed or engaged with before. 

Happier times pre-2013

This year there was no fireworks and no parade. I believe that cutting these two key events may be the main reason for the poor turnout. To make it worse, if you visited the event site for information one of the first things you would have seen, high up on the home page, was that there would be no fireworks or parade, and the admission that funds were tight. 

How very stupid!  The home page should be bigging up the good things not enhancing the negatives!! Why advertise what you don't have? Who is really going to scroll down further after reading that?! 
There is a quote on the site from Adrian Evans, the Festival Director, and he says, 
"By shedding the restriction of a weekend and broadening its geographical horizons, combined with a fantastic and wide-ranging programme of events, the festival will inspire people to re-connect with London’s greatest natural asset in new and surprising ways".
Inspire? how? Surprising?  Well yes. Surprising in the sense that there was nothing to see.

Because to remove practically everything that had been attracting people year on year was a really REALLY silly move. 
Huge leaps in marketing and promo in the past 4 years meant that the festival had become something to mark in your diary. The parade and fireworks were spectacular and kept people at the other attractions long into the final day. A win-win for all. 

This year there were walks and talks about the Thames. A great idea, but most of these were pre-book events. But there was barely anything that you could just show up and take part in as in previous years, such as the feast on Southwark Bridge, or the fire garden outside the Tate, nor were there any dancers or colourful characters walking about. 

I was in London for both weekends this year trading at the We Make London Markets, first at Bernie Spain's Gardens and then More London Riverside. Only a handful of visitors to my stall at either location had any notion that there was a festival on at all. 

Compared to previous years (I have going for 15 years now; 12 as a visitor and 3 as a trader) the event was a shadow of its former self. There were no signage or banners along the Southbank so people who wandered into the zone had no idea that the market and the music stage at Bernie Spain's Gardens were for the event and not just  an every-weekend occurrence. Festival? Where? Last year there were site-specific information points and tents where you could pickup colourful information-packed programmes. 

It was meant to be more about the river this year. I understand that there were a few boaty things happening in and around St Katharine Docks, but as regards the Central London stretch of river I saw nothing happening on the river over the first weekend and I was there from 10am until 10pm both days. 
On the evening of Saturday 14th at approx 8pm night, after a very quiet day at the Scoop with no music or entertainment at all, all day, we were suddenly blasted by a honking cacophony coming from some boats circling about in the Pool of London. Billed as a Ships' Opera, his deafening art-fart went on for much too long. It certainly wasn't singing. 

On Sunday 15th there was some lovely proper singing from choirs in the Scoop. There were lots of people enjoying the music. But they evaporated when the singing stopped. I am pretty sure the crowd was made up of the choirs' friends and family. By 5pm on Sunday afternoon there was barely anyone around at all and the market packed up at 6pm. The festival finished with a whimper rather than a bang.  

I noticed some some volunteers canvassing feedback about the event on badly designed A4 sheets. Half of the questions were about age, ethnic group, where you came from, why you were there etc. One question asked how much you expected to spend during the day and what proportion of that you would have spent had you not come to the festival. What a dippy question. I wrote 57%. 

Another asked "How did you hear about the event?" and followed that with "would you come again?". I would be interested to see the feedback on that last question alone. Because if I was a tourist visiting London and it was my first time at the Thames Festival I certainly wouldn't be going home and telling my friends what a must-see event it was!
So, I urge you... if you went there this year and you were as disappointed as I was, then please please write to the organisers and let them know what you think... because if we all sit tight and say nothing it won't be improved upon for next year.

The Mayor's Thames Festival – bigger, longer, and hopefully better than ever!!

It doesn't seem a year since last year's Thames Festival...
In past years this has been a jam-packed weekend, but this year the event is being stretched out over 10 days, from 6th until 15th September, which means it will be less of a crush and a rush to see all the good things that are on offer.
See here for information and a full programme of events.
I will be checking out some of the weekday events at a leisurely pace and at the weekends I will be selling my Thames-related wares alongside the other designer-makers of We Make London at Bernie Spain's Gardens on 7th & 8th and at More London on 14th & 15th. I was going to say that I wish it was the other way around because last year the fireworks were set off right in front of my stall at BSgdns and, being as there weren't so many people around (the Paralympic closing ceremony was also happening that night), I had the most amazing view of the display, but I have just discovered that for the first time in more than a decade there will be no night carnival or fireworks this year... boo hoo :-(
Instead I will be enjoying the singing at the Scoop on the afternoon Sunday 15th when a 600-voice kids choir will be in full song. I love all that! ;-)
Lots to see and do – I hope to see you there!!!