London Things to Do Tips by TheLongTone

Dear Albert Monuments, Memorials and Statues Review

The Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens opposite the Albert Hall is a wonderful thing. Erected to commemorate Queen Victoria's adored husband, it embodies everything that makes Victorian taste so wonderful or appalling (delete according to personal preference). I'm rather fond of it, always have been. And I used to know a great deal about it, having spent a great deal of time at college writing an extended essay on it. This was long time ago, when you could actually walk right up to, and before the statuary's gold leaf was restored (it had been stripped off in 1940 in order to prevent its glittering acting as a navigation aid for the Luftwaffe-as if the Thames wasn't enough).

I'm sure Erich von Daniken, writer of the ludicrous Chariots of the Gods never saw the Albert memorial, otherwise he surely would have used it as an example: the iconography is clear, illustrating the astronaut, guidance systems and flames (represented by bas-relief figures) supporting the craft as it descends.

It was paid for by public subscription and designed by Gilbert Scott, architect of the St Pancras station hotel and the uncharacteristically Italianate Foreign Office, who based his design on the form of medaeval reliquaries.

Address: Kensington Gore, opposite the Albert Hall

Directions: A short stroll up Exhibition Road from all the museums at South Ken.

RAF Museum, Hendon

As you might expect, aircraft. Lots and lots of them, spread across four sizeable halls: sensible shoes are recommended.

If I was allowed to take just one away it would be a toss-up between G-AEFX, a replica/rebuild of Alex Henshaw's Mew Gull racer fom the 30's (above) and the Walrus, which (presumably because they are RAF types) they choose to call a Seagull V. Really the Walrus would be the more sensible choice, since the Mew Gull is a single-seater and I imagine was rather trickier to fly than the Shagbat.

Part of the museum is in a building which is formed by the control tower of the old airport and part of the Grahame White hangars form the twenties.

Website: http://www.rafmuseum.org

Horror vacui or what: Lord Leighton's House Other Museums and Galleries Review

Lord Leighton was a hugely successful Victorian painter of the 'scantily-clad woman in an exotic background' school, and he must have spent a fair proportion of his earnings on this house, which should knock your socks off.

There's not much to give it away from the outside. Apart from the replica of an islamic mausoleum complete with dome with a crescent-topped finial and moorish-looking crenellations, all built from the same high-quality red brick as the house itself and the, which are . like the main house, simple but beautifullly detailed and proportioned examples of the Arts and Crafts style.

Inside is another matter entirely. After paying your money in a small lobby you go through into for its size one of the most flamboyant and extravagant buildings I've seen. As a piece of whimsy the only building I can compare it to is the Royal Pavilion in Brighton.
Leighton was a keen orientalist: the enfilade of rooms you first enter house his huge collection of Iznik and othe Islamic tiles. It's designed to impress and it certaily does. To give you an idea of how lush the ensemble is, I was in there for a comparitively long time before I noticed that the ceiling to the middle room was covered with gold leaf.

Two doors lead to drawing room and dining room, which are conventional for the period, and a wide marble staircase ascends to the upper floor which essentally consists of a small reception area off which is Leighton's huge studio and his spartan private quarters. And there's a nice big garden should your eyes need a rest.

Words really can't do justice to it. You have to see for yourself (their website has a good interactive tour). I loved it.

Address: 12 Holland Park Road, London W14 8LZ

Directions: 10-5.30, closed Tuesdays. Admisson £5: allows entry for a year from date of issue.

Photography of the interior is forbidden, and they didn't have any good postcards on sale.

Off Kensington High street, just before Olympia:

Phone: 020 7602 3316

Website: http://www.leightonhouse.co.uk

Burning Down The House Theatres and Shows Review

There's nothing like a night at the opera: the cabin scene must be one of the funniest things ever. And Duck Soup is magnificent, as well. But, Marx Brothers aside....

The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden is the third theatre to be built on the site, both it's ancestors having been destroyed by fire. What's there now is basically the work of EM Barry, the son of Charles Barry, who was also responsible for the exterior of the Houses of Parliament)

It's predecessor burnt to the ground in1808. It was owned by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the playwright and actor manager, and the blaze produced the splendid story of Sheridan, being chided for taking his ease at a neighbouring coffee-house rather than bestirring himself in an effort to extinguish the fire, responing
'Sir! May a man not sit at ease at his own fireside?'

What is there now is the result of a mammoth redevelopment in the 1990s, when the whole stage area was rebuilt to in order to facilitate scenery handling. Since opera singers cannot sing a role more than two or three times a week, any opera company is forced to run a repertory system, giving a different show each night. Until 1998 this was acconplished by tearing down the set for a show pretty well as soon as the performance ended, possibly setting something onstage for a morning rehearsal, and then removing that and setting up for the next nigh's performance. Very labour-intensive.

The Great, the Good and the Ugly National Portrait Gallery Review

I'm very fond indeed of the National Portrait Gallery. As you'd expect, the criterion for hanging is who is depicted rather than the quality of the painting qua painting, and there are some very dodgy canvases on display. I am rather fond of bad paintings: they often tell you more about the aethetic of the time in which they were painted than masterpieces.

But for me it's primary attraction are the galleries devoted to contemporary portraiture, which will lay to rest any doubt that figurative painting is alive and well and that a good painted portrait will generally whup the ass of any photograph. Not that all the contemporary efforts are particularly good considered as paintings: Lucien Freud aside, wha is about the Royal family that results in such stunningly mediocre canvases?

The hang is constantly being rejigged, so there's usually something new to look at, and there are generally small temporary exhibitions which are almost invariably of note.

Address: St Martins Place, WC2

Directions: Leicester Square or Charing Cross tubes

Phone: 0 20 7306 0055

Website: http://www.npg.org.uk

The things tourists do Madame Tussauds and Planetarium Review

Well. for starters, I believe that the Planetarium, the only worthwhile part of this complex, is toast. So cross THAT off the list.

I recall being taken to Madame Tussauds as a child: the only thing that made any impression on me was the dummy of an attendant they then had on one of the stairs. Creepy., had me fooled for a while. The rest was just boring. I know they've jazzed it up with animatronics, but really....... and the dummies aren't that lifelike. They used to have a poster advertisement on the Underground featuring photos of dozens of the figures and you couldn't recognise half of them. The rest were only recognisable because of the hats they were wearing.

This is curious because they take great pains with the figures. I know, because I've been done. Not, I hasten to add, because I'm a celeb (whatever the sneck that means). Rather a friend of mine was working as a designer for them and thought that my face would fit for an 'extra' in some animatronic fantasia.

I was duly placed on a rotating chair, photographed from all angles, had measurements taken, casts taken of my teeth (Did the Queen have to do this?) and paid a fair days wage.

I've never seen the figure but I understand it has a full beard and set of whiskers.......

Still, some folks do seem to like it.

If queing's your bag, this is not to be missed.

Address: Marylebone Road, NW1

Directions: Baker Street tube

Phone: 0 20 7887 8000

Website: http://www.madame-tussauds.com

Essential vewing British Museum Review

As an ex-Londoner the British Museum is one of the few things I really miss. Being free you can pop in just to spend ten minutes looking at an old favorite, and you would have to spend a long time here indeed before you'd had a good look at everything. I think that it's difficult to spend much over a couple of hours in any museum without getting satiated. And the breadth of the BM's collection is such to give one severe indigestion if not treated carefully.

I suppose I do believe that the various lumps of the Parthenon snapped up by Lord Elgin should go back to Greece. I'm not so sure about the Rosetta Stone. I bet there's another one just like it buried somewhere in the Delta. There's too much to really be able to name names: I'm very fond of the collection of Cycladic sculptures and also of the galleries of middle-eastern upper paleolithic and early bronze age artefacts. But there's always something new to amuse. move or intrigue you here.

Address: Great Russell Street, WC1

Directions: Holborn or Tottenham Court Road tube

Phone: 0 20 7323 8299

Website: http://www.britishmuseum.org/

A huge sucess story? Tate Modern Tate Modern Review

The makeover of the old Bankside power station into a building to house the old Tate Gallery's collections of non-British and modern art has certainly resulted in an achitectural tour-de-force, with the huge open space of the Turbine Hall (home to a series of often spectacular temporary installations) occupying much of the building's volume. It also offers spectacular views north over the Thames towards St Pauls. There are more than one places to get a coffee plus a restaurant and a huge bookshop. And of course some ART for the crowds the building has undoubtedly drawn in.

Tate Modern devotes 2 floors to exhibits from its vast (but in some areas limited) collection - about 10% is on show- and a third to housing temporary (paid entry, often timed-ticket entry) and I must say I think the acommodation, especially the hanging of paintings, often seems cramped. What's on display changes, so it would be futile to recommend any one exhibit, but there's generally interesting stuff up if you like that sort of thing. I have a degree in art history so have no opinion on the matter. Though I am glad to see that Roy Lichtenstein's Whaaam!! diptych has recently been put up after a long period in the store.

Address: Bankside, SE1

Directions: Southwark or Blackfriars tubes.
By foot over the Caro/Foster/Arup no-longer-wobbly footbridge from St Pauls.

Phone: 020 7887 8000

Website: http://www.tate.org.uk

Walk across the river: Waterloo Bridge Bridges (not Tower Bridge). Review

All the bridges over over the Thames offer great panoramas, partly owing to the serpentine curve the River makes. Possibly my favorite to cross is Waterloo Bridge with a view stretching from the Palace of Westminster to St Pauls. It was part of my commute for two years and it was a bad day if the walk didn't lift my spirits. Incidentally it's designed by Gilbert Scott junior (grandson of the Gilbert Scott who built, among a great deal else, St Pancras station, the Foreign Office and the Albert Memorial), who is responsible for the iconic K2 & K6 cast-iron red telephone booths and both Bankside and Battersea power stations.

I once stood behind that Ray Davies in the bank. Great man.

Directions: The National Theatre & the Hayward on the South Bank: heading North you're at the Aldwich, bottom of the Strand. There are enclosed stairways up from the Embankment at the northern end: at the other end open steps leadi down to the South Bank by the NT.

Wheeeeeeeeee! Tate Modern Review

Those big slides they've just installed in the Turbine Hall... GET THERE EARLY

There are five slides. Two small ones from the bridge over the turbine hall and longer scarier ones from levels 3,4 & 5.

The small ones are simple queue-for. The biggies are (free) timed ticket.

Me and J-boy (height in shoes with lifts just about the necessary1.4M to ride the biggest) pitched up at around ten after ten, and got tickets for the slides at 12 & 12.30. This is Monday, admittedly over school half-term. When we got our tickets I asked the person handing them out what time they tended to run out: she said around 12.30-1 (on the Sunday.)

As we exited around twelve thirty there were still parties of people with kids crossing the bridge in a southerly direction: I hope they got a slide, tho they were in for a long wait. Nothing worse than disappointed kids.

The slides are bumpy! You are shaken . I think because they've been fabricated from shortish sections of straight half-round, so they are not one smooth curve .
Tip expires May 2007!

Address: Bankside, SE1

Directions: Southwark or Blackfriars tubes. Or over the Millenium Bridge from St Pauls.

Phone: 0 20 7887 8000