Where to find the best street art in London
At some point in history graffiti became known as street art. Despite having been given the title ‘art’, some still question the ‘artistic’ merits of this form of expression.
Whether you love it or hate it, London is home to a mass of street art displays and even tours, with this year’s Olympic Games even getting in on the street art act. Here is a rundown on where you can find the best street art in London.
Hackney Wick is the Olympic Stadium’s neighbour and, in recent years, has experienced an explosion of colourful displays of street art.
The 4th Plinth in Trafalgar Square is another home of the controversial modern art. Three of the four plinths near the base of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square have statues of George IV and two generals, while the 4th was intended to be the home for the horse, but was left empty for 150 years, due to, as the story goes, a lack of funding. Since 1999 the 4th plinth has been a display for specially commissioned street art.
Of course when talking about the best street art in London, the name Bansky invariably crops up. The guerrilla artist’s work has taken London by storm and many of Bansky’s street art displays can be seen on unexpected walls across London.
London’s Olympic Park Garden
London’s Olympic Park Garden – Living proof of a truly green Olympics.
After two years of design, preparation and construction, the London Olympic Park garden is finally finished. The 2.5 kilometre site located in Stratford, east London, consists of many lush meadows and fields, containing more than 4,000 new trees.
The former brownfield industrial site is nectar-rich with 300,000 wetland plants, 4,000 semi-mature trees and a multitude of flowers designed to blossom whilst the 2012 Olympics are taking place. Blue Peter gardener, Chris Collins, put the final touches to the UK’s largest urban park by planting an English oak sapling, a poignant symbol of Englishness located within a truly international event.
The quarter of an acre riverside Olympic Park garden overlooks the Olympic Stadium, which has the capacity to hold 80000 people during the Games.
The amazing transformation of a barren, disused industrial estate into a vast urban park of meadows and fields brimming with natural life, is a pleasant feature of the London Olympic 2012’s commitment to be the greenest Olympic and Paralympic games to date. Talking about how the now completed urban Olympic park garden is going to help ensure London achieves its goal as being the greenest Olympics in history, Chris Collins said:
“What has been achieved on the site in turning it from brown to green is remarkable. Spectators will find it hard not to be blown away next summer as the effort put into creating a diverse and colourful park has already paid off.”
Earlier this year, London 2012 Olympic organisers published a statement that they were “on track to deliver the world’s first “truly sustainable” Olympic Games.”
London flower shows in 2012
With a bare, barren and frosty landscape, winter can sometimes cause us to daydream about the spring and the summer and the plethora of flowers, colour and fragrance that occupy the British Isles throughout the warmer months.
If such floral, fragrant and happy thoughts are occupying your mind, you may appreciate us telling you about the London flower shows in 2012.
Orchid & Botanical Art Show 16 -17 March, 2012
Although you don’t have to wait until the spring and summer it seems to experience some dazzling floral displays in the capital, as kick-starting the 2012 flower show events in London is the Orchid & Botanical Art Show. Put on by the Royal Horticultural Society, this prominent show is held at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London.
Amidst a maze of incredible flower and plant displays, the show will demonstrate to visitors how even the smallest and neglected of urban spaces can be transformed into a flourishing garden spectacle fit for royalty.
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 24 -26 May, 2012
Arguably the most glamorous annual flower show to take place on London if not British soil, the Royal Horticultural Society welcomes the public to the Royal Hospital in Chelsea to experience a simply breath-taking assortment of flowers.
SAS Secret Underground Bunker on the River Thames
2011 has come to an end and now we are in 2012, the year of the London Olympics. Alongside the reports of the various celebrations, ceremonies and final preparations taking place for the impending 2012 Olympics, it has been revealed that the SAS are building a top secret base on the River Thames, designed to combat potential terrorist attacks.
In the event of a terrorist attack being carried out during next year’s Olympics, the SAS are prepared to play a key role.
Not only will elite troops be ready to swoop via the River Thames, as a fleet of highly technical military inflatables are to be readily posed on the bank of the Thames in east London, but an SAS secret underground bunker has allegedly been developed as part of the major security operation.
Although the SAS have denied the reports of the development of an underground bunker, in order to, we assume if the reports are true, to keep it as top secret as possible. The SAS has been in collaboration with the Metropolitan Police in assisting them with a series of anti-terrorism exercises, in case atrocity should occur in the summer.
The security budget for the London Olympics 2012 is said to be huge and is the largest single security test the UK will have needed to implement in modern history. In order to meet the security measures to keep every aspect of the Games safe, an additional 360 Metropolitan Police officers are to be posted at the Olympic sites in London and Dorset.
The SAS secret underground bunker that is allegedly being built will be another precautionary approach in light of a terrorist attack.
Chinese New Year in London
The biggest Chinese New Year celebrations outside Asia – It has to be London!
Our New Year may be done and dusted (Happy New Year!), but on January 29, 2012 you can celebrate the New Year all over again, but this time Chinese style.
Chinese New Year celebrations will be taking place at various venues across London, but if you want to witness a particularly colourful, exciting and ‘free’ event to welcome the year of the dragon, then head on down to Trafalgar Square and watch the acrobats, firecrackers, lions and Chinese dragons weave between the music, dancing and traditional Chinese food stalls.
The festivities in Trafalgar Square for Chinese New Year in London on January 29, 2012, will begin at 12pm and will be followed by a vibrant parade of costumes, laughter, lions, Chinese dragons and funambulists in abundance, which will make its way through the streets of London.
There is not such an energetic, fun and multi-cultural event held in London in the middle of the winter than the Chinese New Year celebrations, which really put an albeit fleeting end to those mid-winter blues. The Chinese New Year revelries in London attract approximately 250,000 visitors from around the globe and are the largest Chinese New Year events outside London.
Talking about the sheer aptitude of the Chinese New Year in London, the Mayor of London excitedly announced:
“I am delighted once again to support London’s Chinese New Year celebrations, which each year bring such a huge burst of colour, energy and good will. As the biggest celebration outside China, these fabulous events attract people of all ages and from all walks of life onto the streets of the capital.”
