Category Archives: Tourist Attractions and Days Out

JR hits Foyles

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One of the things that I love about London is the random art that you come across when you’re walking around. One of my favourite shortcuts is to go from Tottenham Court Road past Foyles and into Soho to get me to Chinatown (technically its probably not any shorter but it definitely gets me away from all the darn tourists!) Looking up I recently noticed that Foyles and nearby buildings have gotten a facelift:

Looks great right? Its by an undercover photographer/artist called JR. His signature is to do things on a giant scale posting black and whites up on to big spaces like the face of buildings. Earlier this year, something I unfortunately didn’t see, he even had something up against one of the walls outside of the Tate Modern. All with political/social commentary in the background of course.

The stuff of nightmares – A Giant Spider

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It has been raining for years now, not a day, not an hour without rain. This continual water has had a strange effect on urban sculptures. They have started to grow like giant tropical plants, and become even more monumental. To stop this growth it has been decided to store them inside, among hundreds of bunk beds which, night and day, receive refuges from the rain … Turbine Hall/2058/London …

I must admit when I heard about the latest installation in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern I had focused simply on the spider. In fact that very night after having seen the pic in the newspaper I proceeded to have one of the most disturbing dreams I’ve had in a while involving a giant spider web and lots of death. *Shudder* So, I was a little concerned that going to the Tate Modern yesterday was going to give me further nightmares. In fact I did have a nightmare which involved a wraith which attacked me and was scary enough to scare me awake! šŸ™

The current Turbine Hall insallation may seem a little familiar. At a basic level Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s ā€œTH.2058ā€ involves 200 metal bunk beds laid out in rows all with books basically relating to a city under attack or science fiction novels featuring some sort of impending apocalypse. The beds conveying the sense of the shelter where people are hiding.

As the italicised writing (written at the “entrance” to the installation) at the beginning of this post indicates whilst in this shelter it has been raining for what seems like forever and this has caused certain sculptures to grow by 25% .. hence the familiarity as you are presented with recycled and enlarged versions of Louise Bourgeoisā€™s spider, Alexander Calderā€™s flamingo and Claes Oldenburgā€™s oversized apple core.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this piece of art as I’ve read it has been critically panned with a lot of reviewers criticising it for not having much originality nor depth. Irrespective I’m sure it will continue to draw hordes of visitors whether they appreciate it or not.

Drift 08

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ILLUMINATE PRODUCTIONS is an orgnanisation that presents contemporary artwork in unusual, yet accessible environments. In Drift 08 we have the first art exhibition on the thames. With light, sound, special effects etc. utilised in the first series of installations it would have proved interesting to see. Unfortunately I found out about Drift 08 too late and managed to catch only one: Keith Bowler’s Ghost Bridge

To get to the good you have to get through the bad – Wembley Stadium Tour

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We had an team away day today for work and the venue was a room in the conference facilities at Wembley Stadium. The bad in my title to this blog entry in this case actually wasn’t that bad – we did some planning for our team at work, had some good chow (though the lady who was in charge of the food was an absolutely dragon lady – I still can’t believe our package didn’t even include water throughout the day) and had some money laundering training. All in all a relatively easy day at work.

The highlight was a quickie tour of Wembley Stadium – the field of which we’d been distracted by all day. Since the Madonna concert (when the field apparently got pretty cut up) they have been working on the grass non-stop. The glow of the warming lights was absolutely surreal but the grass looked great.

The official tour of the stadium is apparently about 90 minutes but I reckon in our 45 minutes or so on tour we probably covered most of what you get on the official tour including going into the changing rooms, seeing player warm-up area, going up to the VIP reception area, passing by the royal box, and getting a photo of the cup (100% replica.) Because of the grass growing we couldn’t actually step out on to the grass but we got pretty close.

The most interesting part of the tour (apart from finding out that the VIP seats were worth Ā£80!) were all the stats thrown out at us by our really enthusiastic and really funny guide including:

Seating 90,000
Tiers 3 Tiers: Lower: 34,303; Middle: 16,532;
Upper: 39,165. To put this in perspective the Lower Tier has the same capacity as Riverside Stadium (home to Middlesborough) and the Upper Tier can seat more people than White Hart Lane (home to the Tottenham Hotspurs.)
The Arch 1,750 tonnes (designed “The Gherkin” architect Baron Norman Foster) – its the same height as the London Eye and you can see it clearly across all of London including from the London Eye
Toilets 2,618 (the most appreciated aspect of the stadium!) including urinals

It was all pretty stunning to hear. With all that Wembley Stadium is still not the biggest in the world. There is one in North Korea that can seat 150,000. Man I complained about the nosebleed section of Wembley at the Madonna concert – can’t imagine what it would be like in the nosebleed section of the North Korean stadium!

In the changing rooms Beckham’s number Grass is growing – a closer look
Ā£80,000 seats Work crew gazing around in wonder The Cup – worth Ā£200K?

Here’s video footage of our walk through “the tunnel”. Probably the only time I’ll ever do that in my lifetime!

Dodgems and Bowling

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Tagging along with the trainees from work once again we hit the Dodgem Cars and Bowling Lanes at the Trocadero in Picadilly Circus for a night out. The last time I went out on a dodgem car I had some young Spanish kids really gunning for me … tonight the only difference was that the kids were English!

Jenny and I decided to get in a car together which I think was much more fun because it basically gave us two rides. I didn’t time how long we were driving for but it felt like it was over just like that. Great fun.

I took the above video footage whilst Jenny was tearing around but for some reason it seems much more gentle than it actually was!

We then moved on to the bowling. I love bowling at the Trocadero – all tacky glow in the dark and ultra violet lighting and tonight they were playing some decent music. Of course the cool shoes are the bomb as well.

With fourteen of us playing over two lanes it took a surprisingly long time to get through our frames. I think it took over two hours to play two games each. As usual lots of ribbing during the game. Pauline even resorted to kicking me in the butt and screaming with laughter to distract me. ha ha. She didn’t really need to though – I could bottle it myself. In the first game I basically only had to take down a few pins to win over James C but ended up throwing down two gutter balls! The second game was a funny mix of strikes (three!) and spares (two!) and gutter balls. Strangely my best bowls were when I nearly fell over.

Making the most of “summer”

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As usual the English weather is totally unpredictable. Nearly a month into autumn and this weekend we are experiencing one of the warmer and sunniest weekends we have for most of the summer.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth (not quite sure what one is) after some lunch and a quick hair cut at my favourite hair salon Hair By Fairy I took a nice loooong stroll through Hyde Park on the way home.

Visiting the Newlyweds

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Three and a half months ago James C and I visited Akhlaq’s pad in Watford and this is what we found:

Now Batool has moved in and Akhlaq’s fridge is like any anywhere in London – stocked to the brim! LOL

On this visit Batool cooked up a nice lunch for me. It was so delicious I had two servings!! Probably could have eaten more but didn’t want to eat them out of house and home. Mmmm …

We also watched one of their wedding videos. Lots of footage was captured of things going on at their first reception that I didn’t even realise had happened so it wasn’t boring at all. Flicked through their wedding albums as well – thankfully I didn’t need to wear glovs to see them! LOL

Then, seeing as how it was such a nice day, we went to our favourite Watford haunt Top Golf! First time Batool has played golf apparently and though Akhlaq did kind of try to instruct her she seemed to have a natural talent for it.

Mayfair Spa

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For Lofty’s birthday we got her a voucher for a massage at the Mayfair Spa and what good friend wouldn’t I go along with her to get a massage too. šŸ™‚ Along with the treatment at Mayfair Spa you get full use of the facilities for as long as you want. Facilities include a spa and sauna, and to cool down between the use of these two rooms 3 experience shower room which was: a multi-sensory storm shower (basically a giant shower head), ice fountain (basically an ice dispenser – which was actually quite fun) and a giant bucket of ice water. You could hear our shrieks all the way down the hall after dumping the bucket of ice water over ourselves .. even if it was very welcome after the very hot temps of the sauna and shower. There is also a relaxation room which is dark and has drinks and fruits for refreshment.

Before heading out to use the facilities we checked out what the shower room had to offer – impressively, in addition to the shower gels and moisturisers you would need, they also provided hair products, hairdryers and even a hair straightener (GHDs!)

I decided to go for an Aromatherapy massage for an hour. I was expecting it to be quite relaxing (whch for the most part it was) but my therapist said that if she identified any particular areas of interest she might go a little deeper than relaxation. She must have found quite a few spots on my back because man she was digging in!! Still it felt sooooo good!!! I’m pretty sure I actually even nodded off at some stage! A nice touch on the massage was the warmed face towel which was very soothing. Sandra went for a Tropical Oasis wrap which I think she really liked. Especially the fragrance afterwards. It was all she could do not to lick herself. ha ha!

Our treatments were followed by sorbets in the relaxation room. What a great way to finish a couple of hours of decadence!

Ladies’ Day Royal Ascot

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I’ve only been to the races a few times in my life and even then that was back in Oz in Brisbane admittedly on one of the bigger race days (Melbourne Cup for example) but definitely not at a venue as big or prestigious as the Ascot Racecourse, one of the leading racecourses in the UK, on Ladies’ Day during Royal Ascot.

They say that Royal Ascot is the world’s most famous race meet and it even has royal attendance (we saw The Queen, Princess Anne (I think) and Princess Beatrice today for example.)

Which Seats and Dress Code

Early on we decided to go for the “cheap seats” so to speak – Silver Ring tickets – which had the benefit of not only being cheap but also the benefit of allowing you to BYO food and (though it was too late when we found out) drinks and also the benefit of having a less strict dress code.

As you can imagine getting into the Royal Enclosure you have to pass the strictest of dress codes. Verbatim this is what the website states:

“Her Majestyā€™s Representative wishes to point out that only formal day dress with a hat or substantial fascinator will be acceptable. Off the shoulder, halter neck, spaghetti straps and dresses with a strap of less than one inch and / or mini skirts are considered unsuitable. Midriffs must be covered and trouser suits must be full length and of matching material and colour.

Gentlemen are required to wear either black or grey morning dress, including a waistcoat, with a top hat.”

Hilarious. If this link still works they actually show you some images of what is or isn’t acceptable. With our not substantial fascinators and bared shoulders there was no chance Pauline and I were going to make it into the Royal Enclosure! Somewhere I also read that you must wear underwear ā€¦ though how they check whether you’re wearing any or not is a mystery to me!!

Getting There

Getting to Ascot Racecourses is actually fairly straightforward. A train goes there direct from Waterloo (where once you arrive its simply a matter of following all people with the hats and top tail and coats making a bee-line for the train.) Trains departed fairly regularly so the best bet for the train is not to rush on at the last minute but try and get on first as itā€™s a long journey and, especially as a lady, you don’t want to spend 50 minutes standing up on your high heels. The racecourse is then not too far a walk from the train station though ladies with particular fussy shoes may not be impressed (the trip back down seems much longer by the way due to pain! Ha ha) Although services were frequent to Ascot they seemed less frequent coming back.

At The Racecourse

We arrived at the racecourse relatively early. First race wasn’t until 2.30pm but as gates open at I think 10.30 or 11 you don’t want to be too late in claiming a spot. We came all prepared to lounge on the ground with our picnic rug but to our surprise they had plenty of picnic tables and chairs. Thank goodness because with the windy day I think if we’d sat on the ground I would have ended up wearing most of our food (as it was I wore a lot of Pauline’s wine! Thanks Pauline!) instead of eating it.

The Silver Ring enclosure is gigantic but by the end of the day there was barely a spot left on the lawn. Despite the number of people though the facilities were more than adequate – very impressed with the lavs to be honest. Never had to wait more than a few seconds and they were always clean and well-stocked. We had a good position in front of a giant screen and not too far from the finishing line. It was heaving though so if you wanted a clear view you had to hustle for a spot against the fence or you had to get up on your chairs.

Disappointingly drink was limited .. I couldn’t even get a lemonade and you couldn’t buy bottles of wine and although you could buy champagne by the bottle you couldn’t buy it be the glass. With the cheapest bottle being something over Ā£45 its fair to say we drunk no champagne today.

Still this didn’t stop us having a really fantastic time. As I mentioned we got to see The Queen. We also had a great time choosing our horses – me purely on the basis of their names. I’m sure true punters would look down their noses at us race amateurs but at the end of the day it was all in good fun. My tactic over the six races today was to bet on two horses in each race with a place/win combo and a max. of Ā£10 per race so the most I stood to lose was Ā£60 for the day. Which is a fair expense I think for a whole day of fun. At day’s end I ended up about even though I had a result in 3 out of 6 races. In two of the races it was basically money back and in Race 4 having put a fiver to place on a horse called Fifteen Love (great name!) it paid me back Ā£42.50! If only I’d put something on it to win – at a rank outsider of 28/1 I could have got back Ā£200! Still, I was happy to win a little something.

Departing Royal Ascot

Departing Royal Ascot was something of a mission. With people streaming about all over the place, many of them drunk out of their minds, and rubbish littering the venue it was a challenge. Luckily once outside the track we were able to get a lift on a mini-golf cart for half of the trek so that helped. Also, some girls were handing out bright pink flip flops. Actually we didn’t get any ourselves until we ended up at the pub where I was looking at all the other girls in their flip flops rather enviously. We spotted a guy who seemed to have lots of extra pairs for some reason. Never found out why but I suspect it was his way of getting the girls to come to him. Pauline scored me a pair for which I was most thankful for.

Where we were standing at the pub was actually the pub’s car park and it was rammed. You couldn’t move a single inch and the longer we stood there with our drinks the more crowded it got. Finally we decided it would be best to try and get back to London which was no small feat especially when some girls decided that they would try and push in front of us. Immature much?

Safely back in London once more I had time to reflect on the day and the conclusion was very positive. I had a really great day at the races, even if it involved me putting on a dress – heh heh and it was very good company with Pauline and the boys James and D. We also met up with Jenny who had come along with a few of her friends which was trippy considering just how crowded the racecourse was.