Meltdown Festival 2013, with Yoko Ono and guests
Meltdown Festival 2013, with Yoko Ono and guests – Art for arts sake with thrills and surprises. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Meltdown festival in London. The festival is unusual in the way that it is the celebrities and artists who choose the line up.
This year Yoko Ono is to decide the Meltdown Festival 2013 line up, and will be performing herself with the Plastic Ono band. Previous master of ceremonies at this highly anticipated event, have been David Bowie, Ray Davies, Jarvis Cocker and Patti Smith.
The multi-venue Meltdown festival 2013 is to take place on June 14 – 23, 2013, and the performances will be held in the Queen Elizabeth hall, the Royal Festival Hall and the Purcell Room at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. The South Bank Centre could be considered as the head quarters of the Meltdown Festival and it is from here that you buy your tickets.
Part of the beauty of this particular event is that you can make the festival what you want it to be and buy only the tickets for the artists that you really want to see.
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Where is the best place to stay during the Chelsea Flower Show 2013?
The Wyndham Grand Chelsea Harbour is perfectly positioned to offer the very best in London activities and events, none more so than the Chelsea Flower Show 2013.
Want THE perfect base for the Chelsea Flower Show 2013? If you are asking where can I stay during the Chelsea Flower Show 2013, the answer is obvious…
The Wyndham Grand is situated a mere walk to the show and would make for an ideal choice for any attending the flower show and looking for somewhere to stay.
The Chelsea Flower Show2013 runs from 21-25 May and promises to live up to its yearly high standards.
This year, one flower may even come with its own security team!
Britain’s rarest orchid, The Lady’s Slipper orchid, will go on display under heavy security at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show next week. The Lady’s Slipper orchid was brought back from the brink of extinction by scientists at Kew Gardens.
The history of Covent Garden
Covent Garden – Upmarket and affluent with a tumultuous history. Fringing on London’s west-end, Covent Garden is known throughout world as being one of the capital’s most upmarket areas.
Covent Garden is divided into a north and south area by the central thoroughfare known as “Long Acre.” Whilst the north contains mostly shops, the southern part has the central square and several important buildings, such as the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane and the London Transport Museum.
In 1200 AD Covent Garden was walled off and was used by Westminster Abbey as an orchard and vegetable plot. It was known at the time as the “Garden of the Abbey and Convent.”
Whilst Covent Garden may be synonymous with glamour and affluence, the area boasts quite a history. In the sixteenth century King Henry VIII seized the area and granted it to the Earls’ of Bedford. The fourth Earl commissioned Inigo Jones to build some fancy houses to attract wealthy tenants.
Inigo Jones was a well travelled architect and most of his ideas came from Italy where he had spent time. Alas within 100 years the Earl’s plans to create a ‘well to do’ area backfired miserably as the area fell in to disrepute. Brothels and drinking houses opened up and by the time the 17th century was over Covent Garden had become a well-known red light district.
London Burlesque Festival 2013
Sultry and sexy – there are ten days of striptease heading London’s way this May. Leading striptease artists will perform with titillating aplomb and show the world how much fun taking your clothes off can be! Yes indeed, there is much more than simply “getting them off,” with these skilful and provocative artists.
Founded by internationally proclaimed neo-Burlesque pioneer and producer, Mr Chaz Royal, the London Burlesque festival is a showcase for some of the world’s finest performers who have now ensured London’s status as the holder of the world’s most prestigious burlesque event.
Being held from May 10 until May 19, 2013, the artists on display at the London Burlesque Festival will push the boundaries of their art to the limit! Strip-tease takes on erotic, exotic and more dangerous levels.
Chaz Royal will make sure that the ten day London Burlesque Festival 2013 will be more risqué than ever before seen on the stage.
Trooping the Colour 2013 – A particularly colourful annual London ceremony
It is fair to say that Trooping the Colour is a spectacle that is much in demand in London with swaths of camera-clicking tourists lapping up this vibrant ceremony. Trooping the Colour takes place once a year on the Queen’s official birthday in June, on the Horse Guards’ Parade.
The ceremony is all military pomp and splendour, as the Queen checks over the troops of the household cavalry division. Interestingly, Queen Elizabeth II was actually born on 21 April and for some reason known only to the powers of the monarchy, the Queen also has an “official” birthday, which is celebrated on a Saturday in June. This year that Saturday will be the 15th.
1400 soldiers take part in this colourful military pageant, alongside 200 horses. There are over 400 musicians from ten different bands and drum corps. The parade route extends from Buckingham Palace down the Mall to Horse Guards’ Parade, Whitehall and back again.
Since 1987 the Queen has attended the ceremony by carriage, although prior to this she used to always arrive at this highly anticipated event riding a horse side-saddle. In fact the Queen has made a total of 36 appearances on horseback for the Trooping of the Colour.
Precisely as the clock on the horse guards’ building strikes eleven, the royal procession arrives and the Queen does the royal salute. The colours being “trooped” are rotated between different regiments and it is considered to be a special honour to belong to the regiment whose turn it is to have their colour’s trooped.
The Queen wears the uniform of the chosen regiment, which all adds to the colour and charm of this old tradition.
