Life in London – November 2009

Well it’s December already and time for a quick look back over November in London before we head into the festivities and the start of a new year.

Fireworks at Alexandra Palace

November kicked off with Bonfire Night, the annual fireworks extravaganza to mark the failed plot of 1605 to knock the Protestants out of power and put a Catholic king on the throne. It failed and as a result we put effigies of the man who was supposed to light the fuse on the gunpowder, Guy Fawkes, onto bonfires and have wonderful firework displays, which are now the main part of the evening. I went to a huge event at Alexandra Palace in north London where very loud accompanying movie themes added to the atmosphere – ET, Star Wars etc. Opposite is a photo of one of the great fireworks we saw.

Ronnie Scott's

Each November we have the London Jazz Festival, an exciting 2 week event bringing some big names and less well known performers to famous venues like Ronnie Scotts and small halls around town. I went to see the African Jazz Quintet at Notting Hill’s Tabernacle and loved their upbeat melodic tunes and Caribbean exuberance, you could tell the band were enjoying themselves and so did the audience. The snap of Ronnie Scotts is attached in case you are ever passing and need to know what to look for….

London is amazing for one-off exhibitions and the stand out one in November was ‘Ghost Forest, From the Tropics to Trafalgar’ in Trafalgar Square. It’s aim was to raise

Ghost Forest, From the Tropics to Trafalgar

awareness of the dangers of cutting down the rainforests and did this by bringing 10 enormous tree stumps from Ghana and displaying them around the square. The square itself was part of the show as it houses Nelson’s Column, which, at 169 feet, is the same height as a fully grown rainforest tree. The photo shows this wonderful and unusual show.

In November there were loads of great exhibitions but if I had to highlight one it would be the Beatles to Bowie photographic exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. It was a mixture of photos, album covers, magazine and newspaper cuttings of all the key stars of that era. It was a must for anyone who remembers these performers as each photograph mentioned a key song so the visitors were all humming their way round.

Beatles to Bowie photographic exhibition

This photo of the poster will make you wish you’d seen it too.

I have one other wonderful event to tell you about. Back at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill (yes I do live there!) we have a BookSlam every month which is an evening of groovy music, readings from famous authors, performance poetry and a comedian compere. It might sound stuffy but it’s very cool and we’ve even had big stars like David Simon of The Wire fame and Mercury prize winner Speech Dabelle. This week it was Lionel Shriver who wrote We Need to Talk about Kevin and a wonderfully entertaining poet called Paul Lyalls. It’s just one more of those great things going on in London.

Have a good Christmas everyone!
Sue
www.itsyourlondon.co.uk

Related posts:

1. Life in London – December 2009
2. Life in London – August 2010
3. Life in London… a look back at 2010
4. Life in London – October 2009
5. Life in London – February 2010