Spooktacular Things to Do in London

There’s so much to do in London that you can keep visiting every week, and you would never do it all. Sometimes it can be a little overwhelming, and you might not know where to start. The best thing to do is to think about how you want to explore the city. Are you in the capital for food, theatre, arts, or history? If you’re a fan of ghosts, gruesome history, and all things spooky, London has a lot to offer you. I have some great recommendations for things to give you a fright. Some of them are best in winter when the nights are long and dark. But you can do them all year, including during the summer.

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Visit the Tower of London – The Tower of London has held some notorious figures in the past. It wasn’t just a prison, but also the site of executions and torture too. Deaths at the Tower include two of Henry VIII’s wives, the two princes Edward V and Richard of York. The princes, along with the White Lady are some of the spirits that people say haunt the Tower of London. However, it’s not all ghosts and ghouls, as there’s plenty of interesting history too. It was also a palace and has held many unusual animals, as well as people.

Learn About Jack the Ripper – Jack the Ripper is possibly the most famous serial killer in the world. The mystery of who he might have been has been a source of fascination for people around the world. You can explore the East End and learn about his crimes and his victims on a Jack The Ripper Tour. The walking tour takes place four days in the week in the evenings. It claims to reveal the truth about who Jack the Ripper was.

Check Out the London Dungeon – If the thought of the Tower of London is a bit too much for you, the London Dungeon probably isn’t for you either. The attraction shows you the dark side of London’s history, complete with live actors and realistic models. You’ll see some gruesome instruments of torture, hear some horrible stories, and there are even rides.

See The Woman In Black – The Woman In Black has been playing in the West End for over 25 years. If you’ve seen it on the silver screen, watch the original stage play when you’re next in London. The frightening performance isn’t for the faint-hearted, so prepare yourself for a spooky time. Another way to have a creepy theatre experience is to look for some of the ghosts that supposedly haunt some of London’s venues.

Go on a Ghost Tour – If ghosts are your thing, there are apparently many of them all over London. Some of them are historical figures, while others are recognized by the names given by people who saw them. You can talk a walking tour to learn about some ghosts, or get on the Ghost Bus.

If you love spooky things, you can find plenty of them in London. Whether you enjoy history or the supernatural, you can discover some fascinating tales.

Vogue 100: A Century of Style

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This Monday I personally got my peepers on the Vogue 100: A Century of Style exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, goodness, so much beauty for my eyes to behold. Celebrating the 100th birthday of British Vogue, this is somewhat of an epic exhibition, I mean, maaan, where do you start when trying to curate an exhibition showing the highlights of 100 years worth of fashion and photography from the worlds most prestigious fashion bible? A magazine which has launched and defined the careers of so many models, designers and photographers. A hard task, the selection and editing must have been pretty intense. But this, is a stunning exhibition. Beautifully, simply and elegantly executed, with no gimmicks and no unnecessary pomp. It’s a big exhibition, I mean, it kinda had to be to do justice to the subject, but it doesn’t drag and it’s spaced to perfection so you can take in each image on it’s own whilst also enjoying the continuity and splendor of the exhibition as a whole; perfection. It gets busy and if it had been any busier we would have felt cramped but, it had a lovely atmosphere, all ages sharing the space together for an hour or two to soak up some mesmerizing talent and beauty. It is a little pricey, it costs £19 for a regular ticket which is definitely a little more than most exhibitions in the city, but is it worth it? Yes, I’d say it is, but only just. A few pounds cheaper would seem a better price. Shown in a reverse chronological order, we see the best images from the magazine now, and go all the way back, through the decade dedicated rooms, to it’s launch in 1916. My favourite section? It has to be the 1990’s room where we saw the start of Kate Moss’s career, the photography of Corinne Day and the familiar faces of Princess Diana and Posh and Becks in their heyday. My era. Loved it. Get yourself there before it ends on 22nd May and let me know your favourite era of this massive magazine.

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How To Find Artistic Inspiration At Any Time

I really appreciate other people’s artwork. I know how important it is to study the success of others if you want to find your own, and success doesn’t have to mean becoming rich and famous, y’know! It can just be looking at something you’ve made any being super proud. Sometimes it can be hard to find inspiration, especially when your mind is busy with too many other things. But here’s how I find inspiration when I’m struggling….

Get Outside – It’s difficult to be creative if you’re shut in your bedroom or lounging about at home. Sometimes you can find inspiration online, but other times you need to leave the house. Going out can help to refresh your mind and open you up to new ideas. You can go to a museum, gallery or library to find something to inspire you, I do this as often as possible and write heaps of blog posts about exhibitions that inspire me. It’s great sitting in front of a painting, photograph, artifact or sculpture with a notebook or drawing pad and doing whatever comes to mind. But you don’t have to go anywhere in particular. You could just walk around and see what you find that inspires you, it really is ALL around you!

Go Shopping for Some Art – I think it’s important to surround yourself with art if you want to feel inspired more often. It doesn’t have to cost much to buy something to put on your wall or a book or poetry to read. And if you don’t have much money at all, it’s always possible to find things for free. Your can order things online using stores like Cordair Art, or you could go out and find somewhere that sells things you love. Art can be many different things too. It could be a handmade item you pick up at a market stall. The important thing is that someone has put their creativity into it, and it inspires you to do the same.

 

Use Other Media – You don’t have to stick to the medium you work with when you’re looking for inspiration. If you want to draw or paint, reading a book could help to inspire you. Watching a TV show or movie might get you thinking about something you want to do. Listening to music could help you visualize a new concept or give you some inspirational words, music is a massive inspiration for me. So, don’t limit yourself to only using one medium for inspiration, keep trying new ideas, it makes for so much more fun!

Look at Your Own Work – Sometimes we start things and then put them down and never look at them again. Or we finish a piece but then put it in the back of a drawer, so easily done! Going back to your finished and unfinished pieces is an ace way to be creative. You might pick up something you’ve started again, or it might inspire you to begin a new project…. so many creative adventures to have!

I get it, finding inspiration can be hard, but you really have to consciously look for it, be reday and willing to be inspired and it will come to you, just wait and see!

Meeting Manolo Blahnik; My High Heel Hero

 

blondieanchors_manoloblahnik-copyIt’s true. Some girls don’t wear high heels very often. Some girls prefer to have flat and comfortable feet. Can you believe it? I am not that girl, I mean, heck yeah I run around in my tatty Converse on an average day but, I’m a girl who likes her heels, and walking around a city all day with height is something I am known to do. Call me cray-cray, but I’ll suffer a little if it means I can get my sass on and feel like I’m strutting. I like that feeling. The strut. Not the ache and rub. But I’ll endure. I enjoy wearing heels, I genuinely do.

So when the V&A announced ‘An Evening with Manolo Blahnik’ I hot-footed it down to that place pronto, to meet in person, the ‘Holy Man of Heels’! After my gorgeous evening here with Cindy Crawford, I know these V&A events are ace; relaxed and informal and a great insight into iconic people. Packed in the small lecture theatre on a Friday night, the audience was, again, mostly women but we were all united, all adorers of this man’s magical SHOES! Swoooon.

Blahnik is a cute guy, a 72 year old Spanish man who gestures so much with his hands that the microphone he was holding was only intermittently near his mouth, so there was a genuine humour to the chat. He was talking with Italian Editor of W Magazine, Gianluca Longo. Watching the two men speak together with moving microphones, neither in their mother tongue was unintentionally and endearingly comical. Blahnik is a funny guy, he reminded me of my German Grandmother with his sweet humour; ‘After the war it was hard, we couldn’t get copies of Vogue’ he said as the room giggled, he too found the funny in his comment.

Blahnik chatted about his inspirations – many from historical references – Italian classicism, museums, ‘I love what the beauty in them tells me’, and old silent movies. His work is exceptionally well-known because of movies and TV. Sex and The city is the biggie which made us all fall even harder in love with his work. His shoes are iconic in status and I adore them. I love them differently to how I love my other favorites; Louboutin’s. Blahnik’s shoes feel more feminine,more theatrical, more enchanting and magical. But I love Louboutin’s equally for their unashamed sexuality and sharpness. I want to own shoes from both designers. OBVS.

Asked why he became a Shoe Designer, he seemed to feel he always had a natural obsession with shoes. He remembers his Mother going out in heels. I guess we all see our Mother’s shoes from close-up when we are young and it triggers a fascination. I personally remember drawing a smiley face into a hole in my Mum’s tights when she was standing doing the washing up. What we look at when we are young goes towards defining what appeals throughout our lives, I guess. Seeing women wear high heels from a youngsters viewpoint, from a low down angle, it would make sense to grow up loving women’s shoes.

‘My idea of fun was watching women in heels, they become something else in them’ Yes. Yes we do. And in yours Manolo, it’s even more wonderful.

 

Dismaland. The Delight of Disillusionment

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“This is not your average sugar-coated fantasyland selling scrapings from the Hollywood floor. No, we couldn’t afford the license for that. Instead this is an attempt to build a different kind of family day out – one that sends a more appropriate message to the next generation – sorry kids. Sorry about the lack of meaningful jobs, global injustice and Channel 5. The fairytale is over, the world is sleepwalking towards climate catastrophe, maybe all that escapism will have to wait.” – Banksy

When word spread that Banksy was to open an exhibition in the form of an anti-theme park in the grounds of Tropicana – a derelict lido, walled like a prison ground, on the sea front of Weston-Super-Mare – it was pretty obvious that people would be scrambling to visit. And rightly so. This Bansky event, the most grand scale thing he has done to date, is one of the most invigorating and exciting things to happen in the UK this year, let alone in Weston-Super-Mare. Deliberately placed in the dreary surrounds of a British seaside, Dismaland is a brilliantly curated ‘bemusement park’. Giving you the absolute antithesis of ‘Disneyland’ and all of that which you are promised about the world as a child; there ain’t no saccharine sweet dreams coming true here. This is the flip side, this is as bluntly realistic as it gets, it is a pessimist’s paradise.The staff, wearing Mickey Mouse ears, are trained to be fed-up fun killers, scowling, bored and snappy. “Oi, no entering until you lose the smile”, “leave your expectations at the door” I’m told as I head through the cardboard cut-out parody of an airport security. “Have a crap time” they say to another visitor. The whole thing is done perfectly. From the dead plants in every corner to the rusting disused penny rides and the warped Hawaiian music being continuously piped through the speakers. The overriding sensation here is one of being underwhelmed; but in the most brilliant way possible. If you know the work of Banksy, and you get his mischievous humour, his ridiculously clever take on the world and the anarchic, unapologetic statements that his art makes, then, you enter Dismaland with nothing but a big fat smile on your face. And, ironically the excitement of a child in a wonderland, an irony which is never lost on his audience.

Dismaland has loads to see, it’s crazy good value for the meager £3 entry fee, another nod from Banksy towards money grabbing brands that overcharge you to believe in a false dream. There are over 50 artists contributing here from all over the globe, most of which have never even met Banksy, but whose work was all hand selected by him. There’s an indoor exhibition, a huge scale apocalyptic miniature town, a Damien Hirst sculpture and the main outdoor area which has so much to see that your tummy gets tense with excitement, well, mine did. There’s a beautifully constructed sculpture of two huge American lorries dancing together into the sky, an old rust ridden big wheel, a horse made from scaffolding poles bucking up into the skyline, an old shabby caravan which you can get strapped inside of and spun like an astronaut, wall art, a carousel and a ‘hook-a-duck-from-the-muck’ which references all the birds killed in oil spills. Banksy’s own pieces include the mermaid, the police van, the woman being attacked by seagulls and the skeletal, gothic fairy castle. This acts as the obvious centerpiece, housing a Disney Princess dead in her carriage whilst being snapped ferociously by the paparazzi. As Banksy states, with this piece, the sculpture is only complete when there are crowds of onlookers snapping pictures on their phones to send to their mates; here, ‘the audience is the punchline’.

There’s a great sense that you are in on the joke with the artists here, but the underlying messages are massively provocative beneath the satire and we all know it. What this art is talking about, whether it be government greed, the horse meat scandal, global warming or immigration, the audience know that it’s extremely important, and that’s why it is done SO damn well. It screams that change is possible, that we can ‘un-fuck the system’ rather than sit in ignorance and fear. I love the fact that there seems to be no arrogance in Banksy’s work, not in my mind anyway. That may be helped by his infamous reluctance to reveal his identity, you feel this isn’t ever about his ego in any way. Interrupting the eerie music at regular intervals, like a concentration camp announcement, are quotes by Jenny Holzer such as “ambivalence can ruin your life”. As you leave Dismaland, rather than clutching dreams of a magical make-believe world where nothing bad ever happens – like a kid skipping out of Disneyland – you leave here with a solemn consciousness and a gritty drive to help make the real world just a little bit less bloody rubbish.
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dis15dis13dis8dis5dis7dis17ftftftdis18dis2dis9htrhtrhtdis19Dismaland closes on the 27th September 2015.