Monday 7 March 2011

The Next Few Weeks

11th March: I think everyone was pretty excited to go to the next LSO lunchtime concert, so I've pencilled that in. This week they're playing Beethoven- we'll meet at 12 Midday at Old Street Station- to avoid confusion let's meet in the little downstairs bit near the ticket booths. The concerts are free, by the by! Here's the website!

18th March: Grace has suggested we go to a graphic art fair called Pick Me Up at Somerset House - Concession tickets are £5 so bring your student card. Meet at 2 pm at the entrance. Website up here!

25th March: This is just a thought but I've just noticed a lovely exhibition at the Parasol Unit- Yinka Shonibare has created a beautiful ivy maze full of installations in the ground floor. The exhibition is called I Know Something About love and is free. Give me an email if it's something you fancy, meanwhile here's a bit more about it.

xxx

Saturday 5 March 2011

25th and 4th Roundup!




Last week we went on a fantastic visit to the St Luke's in Old Street to see the LSO Pianist Alexander Karpeyev play- the man is a literal prodigy type creature, he plays WITHOUT MUSIC some of the hardest pieces you could ever imagine, I mean he does practise around four to seven hours a day. Which is a pretty big commitment but even without that I mean if it were me I'd still have a shakey sweaty nervous breakdown a la Geoffrey Rush in Shine:





On the 4th, we went to go see Of Gods and Men (I think, don't have the ticket handy) at the Prince Charles Cinema- crikey is that value for money it's really worth signing up for a card you get £2.50 films! Handy tip for you.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the film? It was quite a nice experience seeing something you'd never heard of before, so when you sat down you really did have to work out what was happening- considering this was a film with what? 40% dialogue? That was no mean feat. I think it was beautifully filmed, and there were some scenes in it that were really emotive- especially when I finally worked out that they were waiting to be killed by the mujahadeen, that sort of explained bits for me.

What did everyone else think? Someone write a review!

xxx

Thursday 3 March 2011

Friday 4th March- Cinema visit

Hullo hullo just reposting the details for tomorrow:

Meet at 2:45pm at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square

That is all!

Love,
Rosie x

Wednesday 23 February 2011

Friday 25th February- Recitals and Galleries around Shoreditch!

Hi everyone!

Just updating with plans for this Friday- we're planning on going to listen to a free (yay!) lunchtime recital of a London Symphony Orchestra pianist in an old restored church! He'll be playing works by Tchaikovsky, Medtner and Shostakovich. The recital starts at 12:30 so I reckon we should meet at 12:00 at Old Street station to give us time to meet up at walk there.

After that we'll go and have a gander at some current exhibitions in the galleries around the area, here's a few that look interesting! Let me know if there's any other you fancy and we'll toddle over:

Saul Bass (Thanks Jana!)

Sheela Gowda

Michael Fortune

Chris Barr

Richard Phillips




In terms of upcoming weeks, I have pencilled in (very gently, don't worry!) Charlotte and Peter to organise the 4th, and Isabella to do the 11th, is that good with you guys? Let me know!

Lots of love

Rosie xxx

A few Low-Res Horrors to Document Last Friday




Since I had my bag which contained my camera viciously snatched in Barcelona during the summer (le sob), I have had to document life using the camera on my low quality theft replacement phone which makes me weep but such is life, there are those with a worse lot. Here are some crackers taken from Friday as promised!







If any one has any more pictures they'd like to add please do but them up! I'm so glad there's some up of the past few weeks thank you Isabella!



Saturday 19 February 2011

Special Report from The Natural History Museum!


Yesterday Scott took us on an amazing trip to the Natural History museum to go on the Spirit tour and look at the Images of Nature exhibition

We learned so many amazing facts along the way, here's a few of the best:

- The Spirit building holds a whopping 22 MILLION specimens! But HOLD ON...

- The entire museum holds 71 million in it's entirety, all neatly labelled and arranged and colour coded on shelves- as a fervent coloured pencil arranger that is actually my idea of HEAVEN!

- DID YOU KNOW that per year more animals enter the country than animals in the form of stuffed animals, live drugged animals and bees.

- Darkness levels can dramatically effect the growth and lifespan of not only wild animals but humans in the city! The scientists at the museum study the differences in behaviour and lifespan of wild squirrels in London

- They use carrion beetles to clean up the skeletons, this does less damage to the bones! READ ABOUT THEM HERE

- On the tour we also met a Coelecanth, the discovery of a live one of which became a pivotal moment in evolutionary science as it provided an insight into the link between land and sea creatures due to the small legs which grew on the body of the fish. They were thought to have been extinct for 65 million years before this little chap was discovered!



- We also met a nine metre long GIANT SQUID! Did you know that squids grasp their prey using their tentacles which as we all know, have suckers on the end- however "suckers" isn't really an appropriate term, as they are actually circular rows of teeth that swivel and cling to the skin! EEEK! They then eat their prey with a beak, like a parrot!

- Platypuses are one of the only mammals to lay eggs! They are also the only venomous mammal.


We also looked at Charles Darwin's collection of specimens from his voyage on the ship The Beagle!

At the end of the tour we met an artist named Alice Shirley who had written to the Museum and was allowed to work with the collection- this is an idea for people who want to work with primary sources from nature and would be a fantastic thing to put on your CV I think!

Will update later with pics from the Images of Nature exhibition and postcard from panama!

Thursday 17 February 2011

Jack The Ripper Walk

Murder, Mystery & Pseudo-surf
 Pseudo-Surf part two
 Pre-Beer

 Getting into the feel of things.

 Surprise guides!


 Run-ins

 One murder down.


 Scott the Secretary takes charge.



Tuesday 15 February 2011

Friday the 18th of February - Natural History Museum: Spirit Tour and Images of Nature Exhbition!



Hello everybody-

Just reposting an email from Scott regarding Friday's visit so y'all don't miss a really lovely opportunity to go on this really great tour.

The Spirit tour is a chance to "Get a fascinating glimpse of the building's 27 kilometres of shelves and some of the 22 million specimens we look after, including hidden treasures such as the giant squid and specimens collected by Charles Darwin." 

Due to health and Safety reasons the tour can only allow 8 people at a time but Scott has managed to bag us TWO time slots, email us at culture_club@hotmail.co.uk to reserve a place. It's on a first come first served basis- if you do reserve a slot but then decide not to come please let us know so we can let someone else know there's a space available.

The tours are a half hour long, while one group is in the other group will be exploring the Images of Nature exhibition that is also on (I hear tell that there's a bit of a kinky exhibish regarding the birds and bees on  too that looks pretty interesting nudge nudge wink wink haha)

We'll be meeting at 2:15 at the back of the central hall (behind the giant dinosaur) on Friday the 18th of February. Please try to be punctual as the staff won't wait to start the tour (incidentally then I wouldn't entirely recommend getting the 345 from Camberwell as any time I've needed to be somewhere on time it's trundled along like a sleepy little snail).

It'd also be useful to bring along some drawing materials it sounds as if there'll be some great opportunities for some sketching along the way- I'll check and see whether photography is allowed in the museum too.

Here are some links to:

Images of Nature
Spirit Tour

(I'll add these later, site is under maintenance)

See you there!

Lots of love

Rosie xxx

Monday 14 February 2011

To catch while you still can!

Seeing our good friend George of Gilbert and George fame on Friday (picking up a pint of milk from the offy, how lovely) reminded me that they have an exhibition on at the White Cube Mason's Yard that ends this Saturday! Catch it while you still can: here are some deets!



Here's a cherry picking of some other great exhibitions on right now that you couldn't possibly want to miss:

Cindy Sherman (ends this Saturday!)
Never the Same River (a collection at the Camden Arts Centre)
Martin Creed 
John Stezaker
High Society

It is also the 200th anniversary of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which I think was in part designed by John Soane! It's so close to us, why not have a look: Here!

Sunday 13 February 2011

11th Feb - Jack the Ripper Walk

This Friday was our first Culture Club outing on our own.

Rosie took us on a ghost walk following the steps of Jack the Ripper from Whitechapel to Liverpool St and visiting the sites of his vicious murders. We visited the Ten Bells pub which some of his victims had been known to frequent and stood on the former site of the white chapel of Whitechapel. Thanks to Seb for giving us lots of extra info during the walk. And thanks to Rosie for organising and conducting our first CC ghost walk.

A great turnout for our first proper trip. See everybody next Friday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary_Matfelon

Tuesday 1 February 2011

28/01/11 Visit to the Horniman Museum

Today after a fantastic talk by Adrian about his work we went on a visit to Lewisham's famous Horniman Museum (http://www.horniman.ac.uk


Here is a little history of the museum according to their website: 


"Victorian tea trader Frederick John Horniman began collecting specimens and artefacts from around the World in the 1860's. Horniman's key mission was to bring the world to Forest Hill and he opened part of his family house to the public so they could view the riches he had collected. As the collections increased they outgrew the family home and in 1898 Horniman commissioned Charles Harrison Townsend to design a new Museum.
The Museum opened in 1901 and was dedicated with the surrounding land as a free gift to the people of London by Frederick Horniman forever for their recreation instruction and enjoyment. The original collections comprised natural history specimens, cultural artefacts and musical instruments. Over the last 100 years the Museum has added significantly to the original bequest with Horniman's original collections comprising only 10 per cent of current ethnography and musical instrument holdings.
Further buildings were added to the original during the course of the last century notably in 1911 when a new building was donated by Frederick's son Emslie. In 1999 the Museum demolished some of the later additions and embarked on a Centenary Development to create a new extension and several associated spaces. It opened in June 2002."


Everyone seemed to have a really awesome day, we met an escaped cricket and promptly fed it to a four eyed fish, whose owner then told us some pretty amazing facts about them. Did you know that four eyed fish are right or left handed when it comes to the sweet sweet act of making lurrrrve? A right handed fish can only mate with another right handed fish and vice versa! HOWEVER if you were to mix right and left handed fish juices together then they would still work and make a baby fish! That will come in useful some day I am sure.


Did anyone do any life drawing or take any good pictures? I drew a terrifying picture of a cross section of a pidgeon! If you have any that you'd like to share put them up! 


I hope everyone is excited about Friday!


Love,
Rosie



Friday 28 January 2011

Blog Number One

Hello everybody!

This here is the virtual home of the Culture Club! Everyone will be emailed the username and password, and after every visit any one who would like to add any pictures, or write a report of our trip or just simply ramble away to himself can if they like!

As a recap, we all know that our next trip will be on Friday the 4th of February to the print rooms of the British Museum! We shall be meeting at 1:45 in the room with the Elgin Marbles in.

The week after that (the 11th of February) I think everyone was pretty happy with the idea of a guided walk! Highgate cemetery was suggested for a little bit of spookiness but any other suggestions are very much encouraged! I myself shall ask my uncle for his book of ghost walks as there's one for Highgate cemetery in that BUT I've just remembered there's also a Jack the Ripper flavoured one with a lot of pubs en route - what do you think?

Lots of love

Rosie