Or at least of those things, jaded and happy on the 22nd December, that we could remember…
A is for avaaz – giving the good people, the millions of ordinary people, a real voice. A great thing. www.avaaz.org
B is for Barry the Barber – a Geordie in Spitalfields via New York, great haircuts & beard trimming, good chat, good vibes. www.barrythebarber.com
C is for Christmas, still wonderful, longed for, magic, restful and festive in the right measure…
Lara Smrtnik
Last weekend we went to Harvest at Alex’s… Initially lured by talk of good food plus talks and demonstrations by the likes of Mark Hix, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Jay Rayner and Alys Fowler, we thought Toast would fit in well…
we plan to…
Hans Holbein the Younger, Derich Born, 1533
…visit Holyroodhouse to see the exhibition of Northern Renaissance: Dürer to Holbein. Over 100 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, miniatures and manuscripts have been gathered together from The Royal Collection – including works by Dürer, Massays, Memling, Cranach the Elder and Holbein the Younger – to give a great insight into Northern Europe’s 15th and 16th revolution in art, scholarship and religion…
Last week we packed our bags and moved to the Wilderness. We arrived on Tuesday, with two vans full of our favourite outdoor things – deckchairs, firebowls, storm lanterns, blankets… – to install ourselves near the lakes of the Cornbury Park Estate, and in the tents of the very first Wilderness Festival. We hefted boxes and carried piles of blankets, attached lanterns to bamboo poles and hung them from trees, arranged deckchairs, put up bunting and washing lines, decorated stages and projection screens, and late at night allowed ourselves a swim in the lake (four girls in matching polka dot swimwear) then warmed ourselves around our very own firebowl…
Next year marks the fifteenth anniversary of ‘Moro.’ The Moorish Mediterranean restaurant was started by husband and wife team Sam and Sam Clark in 1997 in what was then a ramshackle, partly boarded up Exmouth Market. The street has since become a thriving and vibrant parade with plenty of independent shops and many competing restaurants (surely in no small part because of Moro’s success)…
For those of us based in London our forthcoming trip out of this wild city and into the Oxfordshire countryside will come as a welcome relief. The cause of our exodus has been planned for some time however – Wilderness, a new festival run by the same people as Secret Garden Party, asked if we wanted to join them in their celebration of arts, music and the outdoors, and we saw no reason to refuse…
Jo Craven.
I live in the land of big skies. Constable country they call it. No wonder so many artists live here. The fact that this is the end of the line – the train line that is, just a few miles further and you come to a halt in Great Yarmouth – makes this a frontier land…
Rachel Seaton.
I never thought that my favourite part of a visit to the theatre would be waking up the following morning… But so it was with a trip to the Barbican to see Lullaby. The latest production from Duckie, a company renowned for their raunchy experimental theatre-come-club nights, Lullaby invites you to spend a whole night in the Barbican pit with the express intention of getting you to… sleep…
Nat Lucas.
It is difficult to imagine Orlando Gough entering into anything without total enthusiasm. His full steam ahead approach to life gathers you up in his wake – whether he is discussing cooking, a new rap artist or in this case, the day of events that he has curated for the ‘Voices Across the World’ festival at the Royal Opera House (commissioned by its contemporary arm ROH2). At the heart of the day are twelve of his favourite singers…
