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

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

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

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

Jamie Shovlin

The Beard

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!

Natural History Museum

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!