An early spring with lots of sunshine can only mean one thing – the cherry blossom is out! It’s not even the end of March and the blossom is in full flower all over town. That means London’s in bloom a good two or three weeks ahead of last year. Continue reading
Do Ho Suh’s exhibition, Passages, at the Victoria Miro gallery focuses on the spaces we easily overlook; the spaces between spaces, the corridors, hallways and lobbies that link the significant places in our lives. He gets us to see them afresh in a novel way – by presenting them as sheer gauze walls in zinging colours. Continue reading
Every year Kew Gardens cheers up the cold February days with a sumptuous display of orchids in the Princess of Wales Conservatory. I never miss it – it’s such a great contrast to the grey days at the fag end of winter, as the steamy warmth surrounds you and the riot of colour awakens your senses ready for another year. Continue reading
Happy New Year! It’s 2017 and you need something to do on Bank Holiday Monday, so here’s a suggestion for you. A walk in Regent’s Park taking in the Frieze Sculpture Park in the English Garden. There are seventeen sculptures by some top names so you’re bound to find one that you like. Continue reading
It’s time to look back at 2016 and pick my best posts of the year. Not as easy as you might think – there’s plenty fighting for a place, and it’s tempting to choose ten or even more. But I’m going to stand firm at five, so you know the winners have really earned their place. Here they are, in date order. Continue reading
If it’s Christmas it must be time for holly and ivy and A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’ ever-popular story of the true meaning of Christmas. So where better to open the Christmas season than at the Charles Dickens Museum on Doughty Street, where the rooms are decorated for Christmas just as they might have been in Dickens’ day. Continue reading
A casual visit to the Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House last week brought a reminder of just how fantastic its collection of French Impressionist paintings is. All the great pictures are there – the best works of Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir hang on its walls, all displayed in a matchless historical setting. That’s the treasure house of the Courtauld. Continue reading
Cats – that’s a good start. Elegant elongated cats and a spiral staircase to boot – even better. Heal’s in Tottenham Court Road know this. They’ve had a cat guarding their Cecil Brewer staircase since 1916, a slim elegant feline perched on a window ledge surveying all that passes. Now, to celebrate the staircase’s centenary, they’ve commissioned ten designers to decorate replicas of their cat, and the results couldn’t be more different. Continue reading
Walthamstow is full of secrets. Who’d have thought that this quiet suburb at the end of the Victoria Line would turn out to be home not only to the William Morris Gallery but possibly the most unusual arthouse you’ll ever visit – a cavernous shed lined with neon signs, gloriously jammed together in no particular order, all fully lit and fighting for your attention. Continue reading
The thing about London is, stuff gets reused. Buildings get reused. There used to be a restaurant at Aldwych called Bank because, you guessed it, the building used to be a bank. And the most fantastical bank in town used to be a restaurant. Continue reading
