Londons Not as Expensive as they tell you!

In face of the cold and gloomy front that full my mornings in the form of news reports and papers I feel fantastic about this year. And to celebrate the fact that we are all alive and even if we want to tighten our belts a little we can still enjoy ourselves I am bringing yet another list to you.

This time of things to do that wont require you to bring out the hammer to the piggy bank.

For those of you not in London, (or who commute daily!) I will try and do all that’s on the list and bring you back my findings! I do this for you.

Danny Wallace creates a podcast and signs copies of the Yes Man at the Apple Store tomorrow night. Should be ok, hes pretty funny!

The Natural History Museum is holding Londons first Ice Sculpting Festival this weekend. You can even learn how to do it in Free Masterclasses. If once there you are wanting to spend money, there is an ice rink, a Darwin Exhibition and the Wildlife Photographers exhibition on show next to the amazing, outstanding and free permanent exhibits. Don’t forget the lichen exhibit, its just as important as the dinosaurs.

Light Graffiti
Here are a bunch of flickrites who are going to meet up on the 17th of Jan to take night photos of light. This looks fun.


Shameless Photoclub Plug although in exactly the same place but in two weeks after and at the completely unsociable hour of morning time, the first actual meeting of photoclub, Borough Market 31st Jan 09:00.

£5 Films at Vue Cinemas.
You have to order before 16:00 on the chosen day of viewing, so it really is for those last minute choices, and with Che part one on and My Bloody Valentines 3D coming up, it’s a good offer. Actually Its one of my new year resolutions is to see more film. And with this year being the year of 3D, I couldn’t be more excited. 3d film in Real D and sky TV going 3D 2009 it might be worth sending two and a half grand to japan to get the sort of telly you need, to project the polarized view. I am into it I think, but will just go to the pub to watch the 3d games!


Of Course 5 pound films are not as good as free film.


Free photographic portrait exhibition at the NPG

Ok that should do you for a fortnight of getting out and about for less than a tenner. I think the much have purchase is a hip flask so you can get rid of all that left over whisky for a winter warmer.

London in a List

Following my brothers advice I have made the following list of things to do in London with my mother. Note the hand to tick off tick boxes.

September Events
A list of events
Open Days
Jane Austen Festival
Thames Festival
Tattoo Convention

OCT Events
1066 Festival

Stores of Interest
 hampstead shop
cheese shop
 Cheese Shop
 http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/Vinopolis.aspx
 Covent Garden Cask Whisky Shop
 Vintage store

Historical Buildings
 Awesome old church
 Globe theatre
 Tower of http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/admissionsprices/toweroflondonadmission.aspx
Old Bailey http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/
 Westminster Abbey
 Dr Johnsons house
 Oldest Church fabric in London
 Old Jewish House

Sunday 7 September: 12 noon - 5pm
Sunday 14 September: 12 noon - 5pm
for the Brick Lane Festival
Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 September: 10am - 6pm

Museums and Galleries
 Clock making museum
 Egypt museum
 Toy Museum
 Foundling Museum
 weird silent museum
 National History Museum
 Museum of London
 John Sloane museum
 Tate Modern and Britain
 National Gallery
 operating theatre
 Charles Dickens Museum
 Keats House
Markets
 Broadway market
 Camden Market
 Portobello Road Market
 Spitalfields Market
 Borough Market
 Greenwich Market
 Leadenhall Market
 Columbian Road Flower Market

Places of Interest
 Arsenal stadium
 Chelsea Physic Garden
 Kew Gardens
 walks
 singalonga sound of music/ rocky horror
 lochs by boat


Food of interest
 salt beef bagel from Curtain Road or Brick Lane
 Indian food from Tooting
 Chinese
 Steak from either broadway market or Gaucho Grill
 French Restaurant
 Turkish from Hackney, Green Lanes or Gallipoli
 Thai from Isarn












Pubs and Drinking
learn how to make a martini £18 http://www.christophersgrill.com/news.html
Old Gin Bars
In Soho, the Argyll Arms (18 Argyll Street, W1; 020 7734 6117) boasts Victorian etched mirrors, snob screens and mahogany; the original layout is intact too – a corridor leads to the large back saloon past three small snug bars. For knockout Victoriana, the Albert (52 Victoria Street, SW1; 020 7222 5577) is a fabulous confection of hand-cut glass, carved dark wood and old gaslight fittings, built in the 1860s to honour the empress’s departed prince.
The City is where many old-timers of the London pub world are still standing. For example, the Viaduct Tavern (126 Newgate Street, EC1; 020 7600 1863), an 1869 pub, is just across the road from the Old Bailey. Up in north London is the Island Queen (87 Noel Road, N1; 020 7704 7631). Swathed in wood and etched glass, it celebrates nautical glory with a wave-damaged wooden figurehead, palm leaves and prints of ships; a vast island bar presides over the middle of the lofty single room.
Best of the lot, though, is the Prince Alfred (5a Formosa Street, W9; 020 7286 3287). The beautiful old tiling and exquisitely curved frosted glass frontage barely prepare you for the architectural delights within: a complex series of snugs with a fabulously ornate half-moon dark-wood bar as centrepiece. The snugs (free to hire!) once kept the proles apart from the toffs, and stand now as fascinating testimony to the British class system.
On Carting Lane, a gloomy side street off the Strand between the Savoy and the ShellMex building, you can find London’s last remaining sewer-powered gas lamp, still giving out its queasy yellow glow around the clock, thanks to a hollow iron column that allows sewer vapours to travel to its flame. Lit by the capital’s slurry since the 1880s, this Patent Sewer Ventilating Lamp represents Victorian ingenuity at its best.

Bar Polski (11 Little Turnstile, WC1; 020 7831 9679)
N1 real ale casks
Charles Lamb
Tequila Club



Day Trips from London Ideas
Brighton
Cambridge
Oxford
Stonehenge
Avesbury
St Albans
Leeds Castle
Arundel Castle