turtles and the tate

week 2. Yes I know I'm slow out of the starting gate, but the last few weeks have been frantic here and I'm doing my best to catch up. So just set up igoogle and added some useful gadgets, BBC news handy as I support journalism so always good to keep up to date with whats going on and a currency converter gadgets for when I have to buy foreign language book requests for translation. Oh and for no other reason than I love turtles, the turtle gadget - if you click on them they swim!
I've also just set up Google reader and added in the BBC education feed and the tate feed to keep up with tate events and have no excuse to miss anything! Just added 23 things feed too, couldn't see the RSS feed icon (is this because I'm in Firefox?) but just copied and pasted the url into Google reader and it worked!
Now this blog was orignally created to talk about art and culture, and in keeping with the theme I propose a quick art and culture of the day slot. Borough market, I'm sure you'll all have been but I hadn't been for years. Its much smaller at the moment due to renovation work but its lost none of its charm (or the crowds) If you're on a budget don't be shy and taste a few samples and if you love cheese, treat yourself to a modest purchase - oglefield and stickleton are in my fridge at the moment, but not for much longer!
ps just noticed the handy spell check feature on this blog, fingers crossed - no more typos from me!

aha

no we haven't veered into 80's popular culture, i have just figured out how to add tags to my posts which is something i didn't have time to have a go at 3 years ago. Just when i'm trying to remember what tags i've used before (yes we're talking controlled vocabulary here), i've noticed the helpful show all link under the labels for this post. Now i need to decide how specific to be with my labels

things i've seen and done over the last 3 years

so this list is arts and culture specific. As its 3 years worth - hopefully the ones i'll remember will be events that will have made an impact on me (either that or my memorys getting worse than i thought) Just to clarify, i'm using arts and culture in the broadest sense....and these are the highlights, not the entirety - i haven't spent the last 3 years just lazing on the sofa you know

• pet shop boys at hammersmith - ever since west end girls - they put the drama into pop
• goldfrapp at hammersmith - Alison Goldfrapp, the woman is a legend: a coat made of feathers, a harlequin outfit that looked like a cup cake, her own wind machine
  
• madrid - amazing galleries, especially the Reina Sofia where i couldn't believe i could find all of the art i love under 1 roof: rauschenberg, guernica, calder, miro, Tàpies and Jean Tinguely's kinetic machines just in time for a fiesta: dancing at night in the streets with a brass band
• doing printmaking again - morley college - the smell of the ink
  
• henry moore - tate britain - wonderful to see but can't beat the open air as the man intended at sculpture park and kew
• turner prize - the one prize which everone loves to hate
  
• priscilla queen of the desert - when it first opened, loved the film, loved the musical
• truck festival, oxford: bellowhead a band you can't help but jig to
• milan - fashion, duomos and apperitivo time
• london school of samba - they're not kidding when they say its the most difficult latin dance
  
• Pet Shop Boys and choreographer Javier De Frutos - sadlers wells - the most incredible thing - need I say more?

things i'm looking forward to so far: miro at the tate, free summer festivals on the south bank or anywhere come to that matter, matthew bournes nutcracker

so where have I been for the last 3 years?

ok, see my first post? thats a prime example of how not to blog! but i am assured that 23 things gives me an opportunity to get this out of my system. so time to come clean - i set up this blog at a training session and was really keen to carry on and use it for my work. But as you can see, i haven't really had a chance to do this - for a number of reasons which i now feel the need to justify
1) i've been studying part time and working full time for the past couple of years
2) i also started printmaking again and have taken up pilates (but no, not at the same time)
3) i discovered a number of tv box sets
4) i've re-tiled my kitchen floor and my bathroom
so yes i'll agree that the re-tiling excuse is a bit feeble, what you really want to know is in terms of art and culture what have i been up to, after all that is supposed to be the recurrent theme.....so in the spirit of being inactive for a few years, i'll use the opportunity for another post

Arts and culture - so much to do, so little time

I've been in London for 8 years, and before that was working and travelling for 2 years. So am well aware it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking "oh yeah, that looks good I'll get round to that eventually, I'm here for a while" only to realise I hadn't got round to it, and was about to leave town! Leaving town is a pretty good incentive, not that I'm planning to leave town, I should add, but how do you make sure you get around to everything that London has to offer in terms of arts and culture?

Here's how I narrow things down:

Is it free?

I don't have a lot of spare cash, so this is normally a good place to start. If it isn't free, shall I really make the effort and spend cash to go see something that I really want to see: Almodovar - All about my mother at the Old Vic. So glad I did, it was fantastic! And the Old Vic's got special offers for prices for under 25's at the moment (not that I can take advantage of this) check it out: http://www.oldvictheatre.com/index.php

Will I really regret it if I don't go?

yes I could lounge on my sofa watching re-runs of Sex and the City, but I can do that anytime, and I studied art for 6 years and it makes me feel good to go and do stuff. So when there's a showing of an artist I like I really must make a plan to go: Banksy v Warhol at the Hospital - I'm not a massive fan of Banksy, but I do like what he does. But I have always loved Warhol, used to do Screenprinting and also love the Velvet Underground, and couldn't pass up the chance to see his work in the flesh (so to speak) and smell the ink! Exhibitions are obviously a bit diverse, look at what's on at the moment: http://london.thehospitalclub.com/exhibition_intro.html

hello, good evening and welcome

this is my first attempt at a blog, and my first mission is to keep it going! Having been given diaries year on year for presents I normally managed everyday for a month and then gave up. So heres hoping that I'm going to be doing enough culture and arts to keep it going. Although I should point out that you need a better incentive to get out there and do things than just keeping a blog!