Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts & trains from London to Ramsgate

We had a day out of the office and off the tools – it was a Mr & Mrs T P away-day to London.  Started off drinking Pimms on the Fast Train to London St Pancras.

First destination was the RAA for the annual summer Exhib, which we really enjoyed.  Thing about a day out without the kids is that you can miss them and at the RAA I kept thinking about how much our oldest son would enjoy this.  He has come with us in the past and been to many London Art Galleries and I am thinking I must bring him here in the summer holiday.

We then walked across central London and it was interesting to see how empty it was.  We both know London really well, i lived there for many years, and we were surprise at the lack of crowds. Is this due to recession or changing behaviour? Had some lovely Veggie food in Food for Thought at Covent Garden.  The money we saved on food could then be invested in alcohol so we went on to a bit of extravagance, a drink or two in the world famous American Bar at the Savoy Hotel. Seb Coe was there.

Can’t say any more about the evening’s entertainment but it involved us missing the last FAST train to Ramsgate from St Pancras, at the riduculously early time of some few minutes after 10.30! So we went for the fall back of a train from Victoria, only to find it is a bus service from Faversham!  We should have stuck with St Pancras with a change of train at Ashford.

o well, even this couldn’t spoil a lovely day out.

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SX is my cousin. Yeah he is! (Tryin’ to use the lingo…)

Thought I’d tell you about my musically tallented young cousin.  He is just 18 years old and has built up quite a name for himself in the UK and the US as a hip hop /grime music producer/ composer. You can see his work at SX on You Tube or, should I more accurately say, hear the products of his labour.

This a lengthy interview with him with his music soundtrack.

I have just read an article on embedding you tube videos, so I might do more of this.

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutorials/web_graphics/article.php/3480061/How-To-Add-a-YouTube-Video-to-Your-Web-Site.htm

Royal Wedding Unique Collectible Memorabilia

Looking for something a little different, unusual, funny and highly collectible? A limited print run of these posters are being sold and signed by the artist… who also happens to be a good friend of mine, Chris Steele MA (RCA), 

a ‘knockout’ screenprint based on boxing posters of old.
 
Be the first to show your support of with this unique work of art, designed by iDLEHANDS and printed by hand in Great Britain.
’The Main Event’ poster is 50 x40cm and hand printed the old fashioned  way.                                      £25.00 inc FREE P&P. 
.

unique collectible royal wedding poster

 

I just noticed their website is being revamped: www.idlehandsandco.com/ but you can direct enquiries via email: info@idlehandsandco.com 

Interview with Chris about the post is here:
http://www.suite101.com/content/chris-a-steeles-collectible-funny-royal-wedding-poster-souvenir-a368439

Turner Art Gallery in Margate opens in April 2011

How fortunate that the national state holiday for the Royal Wedding on Friday 29th April 2011 will not clash with the Grand event of the opening of the Turner Contemporary Art Gallery here on the Isle of Thanet.  That important event will take place on 16th April and I for one am far more interested in the latter:

http://www.turnercontemporary.org/

Grants are being cut… by the arts council

It’s not just the museums at Margate & Ramsgate which are facing the loss of grants this year.  www.ekmt.fogonline.co.uk

 The Arts Council is cutting funding for many Kent projects:

For example, you can read here what a Thanet based company have to say about their lose of funds:

www.chalkfoot.org.uk/acefunding.html

 The Gulbenkian Theatre in Canterbury is also affected.  www.kent.ac.uk/gulbenkian/

If you are a Thanet Resident who doesn’t know about the saga of the museum funding issues then you need to be looking at recent feeds:

www.thanetbloglist.co.uk/?page_id=58

The blog of Tony Beachcomber (which is almost always fascinating and makes people with metal detectors sound mostly interesting) tells you all you need to know – http://thanetbeachcombers.blogspot.com/2008/02/museums-issue.html 

 More information with a coating of political colours can be found on the various blogs of our councillers. eg

http://birchington.blogspot.com/search/label/Museum

Finally, I have completely revised my What’s On page – which serves at the T.P. family diary for local events.

More New Year’s treats – Panto

We thoroughly enjoyed the Panto, Aladin, at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury (sorry – the local offerings were less appealing) – there are shows for 3 more weeks. The actor Lloyd Hollett was really good and apparently he is from Margate. I got quite close to him as he fell off the stage, into my lap – we were in the front row – was this a part of the show or and accident?

www.lloydhollett.com

The ticket price was a little scary – no wonder the theatre was half empty. When we saw the show, however, we thought it was actually excellent value for money.

Far better to spend the Christmas budget on trips to the Theatre rather than presents no one wants and too much food – I think.

The show was more than 2 hours long (excluding interval). As well as the usual jokes, songs and banter. There were:

acrobats;

amazing magic tricks throughout – I was in the front row, I watched carefully and I don’t know how they did them;

very good impressions.

There is a lot to be said on the subject of unwanted presents – such as how they are upfor auction on ebay – some not even opened! http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article3108159.ece

What about the morality and economics of such waste? To quote another Times writer: Kate Muir “the British nation, have given around £1.1 billion worth of unwanted presents to each other over yuletide. That’s the GDP of Malawi..” http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article3068426.ece

Margate Theatre Royal

We went to see Invisible Bonfires by Forkbeard Fantasy at the www.theatreroyalmargate.co.uk . One night only, much anticipation and hype. Not sold out but a large audience for a Monday night.

The show consisted of about an hour of amusing, interesting and entertaining moments.  The show was an hour and three quarters, however, with no interval. I particularly like the animated story of the carbon weevil. Mr T.P. enjoyed the cast and customer interaction before the show.

By the end I needed to check out the loos but I could not bear to stay in the Theatre any longer. I crossed my legs for the drive home. Dangerous – as I was the driver.

If you are seeking more reviews I found these: http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/invisiblebonfires-rev.htm 

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/drama/reviews/story/0,,2177696,00.html