Picasso and Modern British Art at Tate Britain

seeing you soon

Picasso and Modern British Art opened yesterday at Tate Britain, highlighting the extensive legacy and influence on British art made by the twentieth century's single most important artistic figure. It brings together over 150 spectacular artworks, including over 60 stunning Picassos alongside the works of seven of Picasso's most brilliant British admirers for whom he proved a potent inspiration:Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore,Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland and David Hockney. Full of beautiful and inspirational artworks, this exhibition is an unmissable treat and a fascinating insight into how British art became modern.

50 years of the Sunday Times Magazine | The Sunday Times

50 years of the Sunday Times Magazine | The Sunday Times

The UK’s first colour supplement celebrates its 50th anniversary with a free exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery. Last Day 19th Feb 2012

50 years of the Sunday Times Magazine | The Sunday Times:

In February 1962, the Sunday Times launched the first colour magazine. “My God, this is going to be a disaster,” groaned Roy Thomson, the then owner of The Sunday Times. Newspapers in those days were dull dogs and the idea of putting a colourful magazine with a paper was seen as barmy.

Mark Boxer, the first editor of the Magazine, later recalled, “A curious truth soon emerged: readers liked it – so much so that about a quarter of a million new readers were attracted to the newspaper.”

Fifty years on, and much emulated, the Magazine is marking its half century with a free exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, showcasing the world class writing and photography which has defined the Magazine for five decades.

The exhibition, which opens on Tuesday 31 January and runs until Sunday 19 February, excluding February 11-14, will highlight the work of the world’s finest photographers for the Magazine, including Don McCullin, David Bailey, Eve Arnold, Snowdon, Terry O'Neill, Richard Avedon, Eugene Richards, Stuart Franklin and Sam Taylor-Wood.

The contribution made to the Magazine by renowned writers such as Ian Fleming, Martin Amis, Bruce Chatwin, Zoe Heller, James Fox and Nicholas Tomalin, will also be celebrated.

A special anniversary issue will be also published on February 5, which will feature articles by award-winning writers including Lynn Barber, Camilla Long, AA Gill, Tim Rayment and David James Smith, who have regularly produced first-class interviews, stunning reportage and high-impact exclusives for the Magazine.

The Sunday Times Magazine 50th Anniversary Exhibition, sponsored by Lexus, will be at the Saatchi Gallery, London from Tuesday, January 31, to Saturday, February 19. Entry is free. The exhibition is open daily from 10am to 6pm

Fashion : Somerset House London Fashion Week

London Fashion Week at Somerset House
Fashion : Somerset House:

Somerset House has hosted London Fashion Week since 2009, we are also home to fashion designer Corrie Nielsen, who has a studio in our building. We have programmed several fashion exhibitions in recent years including SHOWstudio: Fashion Revolution, which was a collaboration with renowned fashion photographer Nick Knight,Dior Illustrated: René Gruau and the Line of Beauty, a fashion illustration exhibition, a display highlighting Matthew Williamson’s work in our Courtyard Rooms and our current display 20 Years of Dazed & Confused Magazine.

What's on at The Royal Albert Hall

Aida

Thursday 23 February - Sunday 11 March

We are all looking forward to seeing the arena transformed into the ruins of ancient Egypt next week, for this new and unmissable in-the-round production of Verdi's awe-inspiring opera. Click here to view some exciting behind the scenes footage from the rehearsals.

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Jools Holland & His
Rhythm and Blues Orchestra

Friday 30 November & Saturday 1 December

The boogie-woogie piano master returns to the Hall. Folk-pop sensation KT Tunstall will be Jools' special guest for these shows.
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Shakespeare's Globe 2012 Booking

17th  February 2012

Public booking is now open, and more casting has been confirmed for the 2012 theatre season. Joining Mark Rylance in Richard III and Twelfth Night are Johnny Flynn (Jerusalem, front man of folk rock band Johnny Flynn’), Samuel Barnett (The History Boys, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead), Colin Hurley (Anne Boleyn, All’s Well That Ends Well), Liam Brennan (A View From The Bridge, Othello, The Lieutenant of Inishmore ) and Peter Hamilton Dyer ( Anne Boleyn, All’s Well that Ends Well, Henry VIII). Also joining the cast of Twelfth Night as Malvolio is Stephen Fry (recent screen credits include Sherlock Holmes II, Bleak Old Shop of Stuff, Q.I., Bones).   Double Olivier award-winner, Samantha Spiro will take the role of the formidable Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew. After touring the UK, Henry V, with Jamie Parker as the King, will come home to the Globe. As You Like Itand Hamlet will briefly visit the Globe on their countrywide tour. Book now for best available seats or get the greatest view in the house for £5 standing in the yard.

Tunnels under the Thames- Tower Subway 1870

London has twenty tunnels under the River Thames making it one of the most tunnelled cities in the world.  Lets take a look at how they developed over the years. No 2 Tower Subway


Tower Subway 1870 
The tunnel dug in 1869 and was the second constructed tunnel beneath the River Thames near the Tower of London.

The Entrance to Tower Subway (Disused)

 Its alignment runs between Tower Hill on the north side of the river and Vine Lane (off Tooley Street) to the south. Its innovative method of construction provided the template for the construction in 1890 of the City & South London Railway, the first of London's "Tube" railways.

The tunnel is called a subway according to normal British usage, indicating a tunnel for pedestrians, and not to the American English usage, equivalent to underground rapid transit.

It is sometimes cited as the world's first underground tube railway, though it was not the first underground railway. (wikipedia)

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Tunnels  under the Thames- The Thames Tunnel 1843 (No.1)

London has twenty tunnels under the River Thames making it one of the most tunnelled cities in the world.  Lets take a look at how they developed over the years. No.1 The Thames Tunnel.

Thames Tunnel 1843

Built in 1843 by Marc Brunel for Rail.

The Thames Tunnel is an underwater tunnel built beneath the River Thames in London. United Kingdom, connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping.  It measures 35 feet (11 m) wide by 20 feet (6 m) high and is 1,300 feet (396 m) long, running at a depth of 75 feet (23 m) below the river's surface (measured at high tide). It was the first tunnel known successfully to have been constructed underneath a navigable river, and was built between 1825 and 1843 using Thomas Cochrane and Marc Isambard Brunel’s newly invented tunnelling shield technology, by him and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel.


Worth a Visit Brunel Museum

Take a Tour

No.2 Tower Subway

All that mighty heart - Film collection, London Transport Museum

All that mighty heart - Film collection, London Transport Museum:

Museum of London on-line collections

Take a browse at the on-line collections at the Museum of London

Here you will find a selection of objects from the museums collections, organised according to borough. They aim to add more items, building up a comprehensive map of where objects were made, found or used in London. There is an interactive map listing items from each borough

Click  Museum of London: To go searching and exploring!!

Here are one or two examples of the many hundreds

OIL, INK AND GOUACHE ON CARD

London Landscape

This painting is set in Brixton immediately after the Second World War. The artist wrote that he 'was fascinated by the window full of bills on the derelict shop front - it seemed to be blooming like a flower in such a drab setting. I came back the following morning about 6.30am and using the roof of my car as an easel, I worked on it until the place became too busy and finished it some time later from memory, which was refreshed by a number of visits. My last visit was an anti-climax, all the bills were gone and had given place to the usual vulgarity of a chromium plated shop front.'

Inside Woolworths Store, Kilburn High Road

Before the First World War branches of Woolworth's opened in Croydon, Peckham, Woolwich, Harlesden and Brixton. This branch, at 100-104 Kilburn High Road, was trading by the early 1920s. The shops were a huge success and the business thrived during the 1920s and 1930s. By 1950, there were a 762 Woolworth's stores in the U.K. boasting the popular slogan 'Nothing in these stores over sixpence'.

• Production Date:
  1951-1975

Featured London Pubs-The George Inn
75-77 Borough High Street, London SE1 1NH
0207 407 2056

Last remaining galleried inn in London

WELCOME TO THE GEORGE INN   Green King  Menu

The George Inn is London's only remaining galleried coaching inn and has been serving thirsty Londoner's for over 300 years. Owned by the National Trust the George was a haunt of Charles Dickens and is mentioned in 'Little Dorrit'. There are two meeting areas, The Talbot Room is in a board room style and The George Room can be set to your preference. They are situated on the first and second floors of the inn, both private areas and have full meeting facilities. Whether you are planning a small meeting for five people or something on a larger scale we are happy to discuss all your requirements. The George also holds a license to host wedding ceremonies and is a fabulous venue for business meetings

Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum London.

Fleming Museum at St Mary's Hospital

St Mary's Hospital is home to the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum. Fleming discovered the antibiotic penicillin at St Mary's Hospital in 1928, a breakthrough that revolutionised medicine and earned him a Nobel Prize.Visitors to the Museum can see Fleming's laboratory, restored to its 1928 condition, and explore the story of Fleming and the discovery and development of penicillin through displays and video.

The Museum welcomes visitors from all over the world and information is available in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Greek, Russian, Polish, Czech, Japanese, Cantonese Chinese, Hindi, Gujerati, Kannada and Punjabi.

Opening hours
The general opening hours are Monday to Thursday, 10.00 to 13.00. Visitors can arrange alternative times by prior appointment, including weekends and evenings by special arrangement. The Museum is closed on public holidays and between Christmas and New Year.

Admission charge
Adults: £4.00
Children, students, senior citizens, UB40 holders: £2.00
Staff and students of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College School of Medicine: Free on production of valid identification badge

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Today's Blue Plaque Sir Alexander Fleming
FLEMING, Sir Alexander (1881-1955)

SIR ALEXANDER FLEMING 1881-1955 
Discoverer of penicillin lived here 20a Danvers Street, Chelsea, SW3 5AT


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Wikipedia

Sir Alexander Fleming FRSE FRS FRCS(Eng) (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955) was a Scottish biologist and pharmacologist. He wrote many articles on bacteriology, immunology, and chemotherapy. His best-known discoveries are the discovery of the enzyme lysozyme in 1923 and the antibiotic substance penicillin from the mould Penicillium notatum in 1928, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain.

In 1999, Time magazine named Fleming one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century for his discovery of penicillin, and stated:

It was a discovery that would change the course of history. The active ingredient in that mould, which Fleming named penicillin, turned out to be an infection-fighting agent of enormous potency. When it was finally recognized for what it was, the most efficacious life-saving drug in the world, penicillin would alter forever the treatment of bacterial infections. By the middle of the century, Fleming's discovery had spawned a huge pharmaceutical industry, churning out synthetic penicillins that would conquer some of mankind's most ancient scourges, including syphilis, gangrene and tuberculosis.

What's that?  in London at Claremont Square

Every day we sit on buses and travel around London passing things that ask us what's that?

Claremont Square Reservoir

Claremont Square, Islington, London, UK

associated engineer
William Chadwell Mylne

date  1855 - 1856
era  Victorian  |  category  Dam/Reservoir  |  OS grid reference  TQ310831

This service reservoir in the centre of Claremont Square was built to boost water supplies from the New River. The 17th century New River brought fresh water to London from springs in Hertfordshire, but within a century demand was outstripping supply. The present covered reservoir replaces an 18th century open-air one, and is still in use.

New River — no longer new and more of a canal than a river — was built in 1608-13 by Sir Hugh Myddelton (1560-1631). By the beginning of the 18th century London’s burgeoning development meant that water supplies could be inadequate. To create a buffer against varying flows and to give extra head of water to the gravity supply, the New River Company constructed an Upper Pond that would supply the river’s terminus at Round Pond (TQ313827). It was built on 0.4ha of land leased from the second Earl of Clarendon, Henry Hyde (1638-1709), and was completed in 1709.

Apart from continuing supply problems, a cholera epidemic in 1846 prompted safety concerns and led to the Metropolis Water Act of 1852. This stipulated that all water, other than from pumped wells, should be filtered and that all filtered water reservoirs within an 8km radius of St Paul’s Cathedral should be covered.

The Upper Pond was demolished in 1855 and replaced by a brick structure 38.6m above high water in the River Thames, which also delivers water by gravity flow. Some of the original timber supply pipes were found during excavations for the new service reservoir.

The reservoir is about 55m square with rounded corners. Inside it is divided into 12 north-south bays separated by partition walls, which support the barrel-vaulted roof. Each partition wall has 10 narrow openings under segmental arches along its length to allow water to circulate. There are also two east-west cross walls with arched openings into each bay. The brick floors in each bay are slightly concave. The structure is about 8m deep and contains water up to 6.4m deep, with has a capacity of 16 million litres.

The 610mm diameter cast iron inlet pipe is on the south side, and is opened by a gate valve with a control rod that rises through the roof. There are similar arrangements for the three outlets (south west, north east and north west corners). All four control mechanisms are set on shallow plinths of York stone. There is a 2m wide channel along the south side, sloping to a drain at the west wall, which also has York stone floor slabs. Two additional outlets were set into the west wall at a later date.

All the bricks in the structure — reputedly 4 million of them — are mortared together with hydraulic lime. The outer wall is battered at a slight angle, and is kept watertight by an external layer of puddled clay. However, little of the reservoir is visible externally as it is concealed within a grass-covered earth embankment some 4m above ground level. A low brick parapet wall with stone capping rises above the mound and surrounds the grassed roof, which has eight round equipment hatches with metal covers.

Access to the interior is through a stone roofed entrance on the east side, leading down two flights of stone stairs with iron handrails. It is not open to the public. The embankment is still ringed with the original iron railings at street level. The structure cost £21,000 to build — a price that reflects the fact that water supplies to customers had to be maintained throughout construction.

The reservoir is now owned and operated by Thames Water, and is supplied with treated water from the Thames Water Ring Main (completed in 1994 and extended in 2010). It was Grade II listed in June 2000.

William Chadwell Mylne was the second son of Robert Mylne, surveyor for the New River and designer of the first Blackfriars Bridge (River Thames, now demolished). William succeeded his father as surveyor to the New River Company in 1811.

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UK weather forecast: After temperatures plunged to MINUS 18C - get ready for the half term thaw | Mail Online

UK weather forecast: After temperatures plunged to MINUS 18C - get ready for the half term thaw | Mail Online:

BBC Weather

BBC Weather: 10/02/12