And Did Those Feet

Dear List Member This is to wish you a happy Christmas from the Old Operating Theatre Museum and staff. Just to share with you the news that the Museum is now clear of all building works for the first time in many months. The interior is looking wonderful, the Church has been fully restored and is now occupied by friendly neighbours. Not only that but they have stopped digging up St Thomas Street and the whole place is vibrant and feels like a million dollars. The building work made the year tough but despite this we managed to provide for 25,000 visitors. We hope therefore to push on next year - improving the displays, the education service, the museum's lease and the working conditions for staff. We will be fundraising to make major improvements. So we will need all your support over the coming year. If you would like to help with the fund-raising I am running a survey to help shape our strategy and I would be really delighted if you could take 2 minutes (honest, that is al...

Southwark may be losing one museum and gaining another. The Design Museum is said to be considering a move to the former Commonwealth Institute building in Kensington. The Bristol-based British Empire & Commonwealth Museum , is on the short list for the Potters Field site near the Tower of London.

Useful fundraising web site. how2fundraise.org | Home

Here is a link to Boris's Cultural Strategy cultural-metropolis.pdf (application/pdf Object)

As part of the medical london book there is a film of the operating theatre museum on the Wellcome web site: Medical London: city of diseases, city of cures: video extras for the walk Life and Death by Water: A walk along the Medieval Thames

Reading an interesting piece in Conservation Bulletin which gives a set of criteria for redevelopment: 'Continuity and context in urbanism and architecture: the honesty of a living tradition' by Hank Dittmar, Chief Executive, the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment '...The Prince's Foundation has evolved a series of principles for building in an historic context. These principles were launched by HRH The Prince ofWales at a conference on New Buildings in Old Places. There are five core ideas. • Recognition that sustainability means building for the long term — one hundred years, rather than twenty years. • Because of this, building in an adaptable and flexible manner, reassessing and reusing existing buildings wherever possible. • Building in a manner that fits the place, in terms of materials used, proportion and layouts and _ climate, ecology and building practices. • Building beautifully, in a manner that builds upon tradition, evolving it in response ...

Nicknames of Henry I and his wife Matilda Her Majesty's Tower Part One - Google Book Search

I was really looking forward to this exhibition as it is one of the subjects I talk about on my National Gallery tours for Elderhostel , but I was very disappointed. The exhibition has virtually no narrative, very little explanation and mostly it seems to bring in paintings you can see upstairs for free downstairs so you can pay £10 to see them. There is very little in the exhibition about how the paintings were done, very little on technique, not much on why they were done and not much social history either. A few clues can be gathered from the film show after the visitors exits the exhibition but otherwise, apart from the great collection of portraits themselves very little is learnt. The paintings are displayed thematically, this room for rulers, that for family, the other for friends but otherwise the labels give little away. There is no narrative for each room except in a free gallery guide, and the painting labels quite often are little more than verbal descriptions of the painti...

News. I successfully completed my strange guided tour of the On Purpose exhibition. This was a commission by avante guarde designers Abake who asked me to do a guided tour of the Arnolfini On Purpose exhibition in Bristol. The twist was they wanted the tour to do done inLondon at the 'Wouldn't it be nice?' exhibition at the Embankment Gallery, Somerset House. If you are interested how it went please follow this link OnPurpose pdf I also gave a guided walk on archaeology of the City. During my researches I was happy to discover that archaeologists have now found evidence of early military ditches suggesting that London'sorigins are indeed military. Have a look at my blog for further comments on these ideas: www.anddidthosefeet.blogspot.com Tuesday 2 December 2008, 7.30pm GANGLAND SOHO A TALK BY JAMES MORTON James Morton vividly portrays the crimes and criminals that have given Soho its infamous reputation. Behind the fashionable bars and clubs of Soho lies a fascin...

The Brunel Museum has pulled off something of a triumph - opening up the Shaft to the Tunnel for public view - a really great piece of negotiations. I wrote to Richard Hulse the Director to offer him my congratulations. Richard was kind enough to remember that the idea for the expansion into the Shaft came about when I was running the Museum. But the idea is one thing the organisation of it into a reality quite another. Brunel Museum - Home Page

I began writing an article on the Museum's Public Health Walks and update wikipedia in the process. Epidemiology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Museum of Garden History has reopened with a new gallery providing more space, with new displays, new name and new £6 entrance fee. Garden Museum opens with newly pruned displays [17 November 2008]

A temporary reprieve was given to the London Fire Brigade museum. It seems that the crass remarks made by Brian Coleman have united people in support of the Museum. His latest sally was to describe the Museum as shabby and not engaging with young people with interactivity. Southwark’s "shabby" London Fire Brigade Museum debated at City Hall [23 November 2008]

Here are some pictures of the editing event organised by Bad Idea at the Old Operating Theatre Museum. Idependent Review here. BAD IDEA magazine | The Butcher's Shop: Photos

I see the BM is trying to steal a little of the Tate Modern Thunder, with Antony Gormley and Ron Meurk exhibits.

We had 90 5 - 6 year old children to the Museum today to do a session based on invention. In the Museum they did medical invention and on a walk we looked at public health and other inventions based on Victorian London. One walk worked really well, but the second was made more difficult by need to find toilets that did not need 20p.

Really enjoyable exhibition at the BM - enjoyed it much more than either Hadrian or Chinese Emperor. No longer in the Reading Room - I hope they are putting the reading room back to its proper use, the Exhibition is essentially an essay on the idea of Babylon. The narrative begins with Breughel's Tower of Babel and then shows star items from Babylon in the time of Nebucanassar and Belshazzar. Thereafter, the exhibition looks at the myth of Babylon interspersed with historical sections essentially based on the biblical stories of Daniel and the Writing on the Wall. There is a section of 'legacy' based on Babylonian science (use of base 60 and the Zodiac). At the end the exhibition comes right up to date with film clips such as Metropolis and Intolerance, and of the affect of the 2nd Gulf War on Babylon. There is a clip of an academic discussion a Rasta view of Babylon. In many ways it is quite light weight and non - threatening. The examination of ancient Babylon is very...

Following the success of my Archeology and the Origins of London walk for London Walks, I have revamped the walk I designed for schools based on Roman London. A pdf is available here:

Following discussion with Nick Bateman I purchased a copy of the feschrift for Harvey Sheldon which contains an article on London's population. 'Londinium and Beyond' - Revealing Roman London – Birkbeck, University of London

Yesterday I gave an archaeology walk around London concentrating on the Origins of London. A lot to get into one walk and also I still had the myths and legends in my mind so a bit of that seeped in too. In the end only got to Guildhall and did not get to the intended end point which was St Aphage. Most interesting thing I discovered is that one of the summaries of excavations from Walbrook House suggests that MOLAS found a large fortified enclosure around a Roman conquest period military zone. These were evidenced by N-S v-shaped ditches one had late iron pottery in it. The report goes on to suggest this could be the boundary of the early City. Not sure which side of the Walbrook the site was . I emailed Nick Bateman about it and he tells me the date of the ditches are 43-50 AD so not necessarily 43 AD as the summary suggested, but it does seem to imply a defended early settlement on the Cornhill with its western boundary on the east bank of the Walbrook. I'd like to see a dia...

The excavation of the East Smithfield cemetary has been published by the Museum of London. It reveals that burial was organised and not rushed although the finding of coins in pockets suggests the family and grave diggers were too afraid to go through the clothes of victims. Analysis of the burials shows that 40% are young people but there are few infants and hardly any old people. Men were more likely to be victims than women. Spread was probably human to human and not via rats - the report says. Click here for details

To recap: I am describing my guided walk of the On Purpose Exhibition at the Arnolofini in Bristol which was given at the Wouldn't it be Nice Exhibition at The Embankment Galleries, London. The models in Jurgen Bey's piece had a parallel at the Arnolofini in Yuri Suzuki's piece Sound Chaser. So I described the little models as if they were train trucks which had a stylus on the bottom and they ran over tracks made of old vinyl. The story I gave out was the Suzuki wanted to return to the physicality of vinyl. His second piece at the Arnolofini was similar here users could (if they were very lucky to work out how the system worked) a bring a MP3 and engrave the sound onto a piece of plastic jewellery - viz a bracelet which could be played on a turntable. I asked my audience to split into two's, one of the pair to think of some wonderful music to give as a gift to their partner, and then to clap or click out the rhyme . This gave a pleasing noise. I then told the ...

Here, I continue the narrative of the Guided walk around the On Purpose Exhibition at the Arnolfini, which paradoxically, took place at the 'Wouldn't it be nice' exhibition at the Embankment Galleries. The next piece on my Arnolfini tour was Alex Rich's 'Things to Say. Rich used a series of workshops with children and explored the use of simple shapes to make up letters. At the Arnolfini the first words by Rich on the wall of the Exhibition spelt out 'Suki Yaki'. My insight into Rich's work was helped by an examination of 'Book Circle' the last piece in the Arnolfini exhibition, only 2 authors could be identified from this piece and one was Bruno Munari. I looked him up and found that the font Rich was using with the children was identical to Munari's font see above. Munari believed that progress is simplification and was trying to find the fewest shapes that were needed to make a fond. He thought only one font should be necessary for all ...

In my previous post, I described the beginning of the tour of Arnolfini Exhibition 'On Purpose' which took place at the Embankment Gallery. After the start outside the Gallery we went into the Book Shop. This is where the Exhibition 'On Purpose' began, the Arnolfini shop sold magazine's Frieze and Venue, in each magazine was an advert for the Arnolfini Exhibition designed by Abake and Alex Rich. Abake's advert was a printout of a plan spreadsheet, Rich's was a flow chart. So I had planted a magazine 'Move or Improve' in the Shop - I had purchased the magazine earlier choosen because it was the tackiest 'design' magazine I could find. In it I placed my Asus EEE PC - I was trying to go one further than Abake - they used a printout of a Spreadsheet I used an actual spreadsheet on a computer. I suggested that ABAKE were given away a computer with each magazine so cheap were the EEE pcs. The only problem was that the computer froze and so I co...

This is the web site coordinating the proposed festival based on the Story of London. Mayor of London - Story of London

We have a group of children coming to do an Inventions Day at the Old Operating Theatre museum - we are putting a session together on medical inventions and I'm thinking about the Guided Walk. First thoughts are: I, Guys Hospital - Statue of Hygia - intro to Hygiene 2. Guys Courtyard - Florence Nightingale, hospital design and hygiene 3. Victorian buildings at back of hospital talk about invention of the Flushing toilet and the good it did and the bad it did (spreading infected water into the water supply and causing cholera 4. George drinking beer and a little bit about inventions re traffic i.s stage coaches made travel to Manchester shrink form 4 days to 24 hours in the 18th Century 5. Hop Exchange hops in beer makes it preserve longer and therefore cheaper 6. market - maybe something on refrigeration 7. end at river - water supply, clean water, steam ships, invention of CPR etc.

Gift Aid Toolkit on CD HM Revenue and Customs has published a CD toolkit on using Gift Aid to increase charity income. It includes basic guidance, templates, an interactive claim form and other materials. You can request the CD by phoning HMRC Charities on 08453 020 203 or emailing charities@hmrc.gov.uk . (From Mla, London -newsletter)

The MLA has killed the Campaign for Museums and its Museum and Gallery month. Although I was never a great fan of the Month, it strikes me that this is yet another example of the arbitrary ways of the MLA. It decides something has run its course, it kills it. It just seems that museums have no voice with the MLA. MGM - Homepage

At last the scaffolding is down outside the Old Operating Theatre! Almost time to celebrate except the building area is still there, and the toilets not yet fixed or the stairs painted. But we are nearly there!

After a quick conversation with the organiser of the London Bridge Festival in July I see we are now doing a Story Writing Competition at the Old Operating Theatre Museum. The original idea was a story telling competition but maybe our cooperation with Bad Idea Magazine can be deployed to bring this about. London Bridge Festival : "Story Writing Competition"

Its early days yet in the discussion but I think this would be a really good move (certainly for the Commonwealth Institute) although not much passing traffic in that area. Design Museum considers quitting Southwark for Commonwealth Institute [30 October 2008]

This is the narrative of the On Purpose Walk I did most of the preparation for the Walk on Friday night and Saturday morning although I had been thinking about it since my visit to the Arnolfini Last weekend. To recap on the idea - two design exhibitions, held in art galleries are twinned partly because of the participation of Abake. Benjamin, from Abake asked me to do a tour of the Somerset House 'Wouldn't it be nice' exhibition, but to talk about the 'On Purpose' Exhibition happening at the Arnolfini, Bristol. The idea being that another person would do the opposite at the same time. 'The experience will be disorienting' said Benjamin. The first task I set myself was to get to know the On Purpose Exhibition well enough to do a tour of it and to have a good mental picture of the exhibition and design issues behind the exhibition. Having been to Bristol, and met my doubleganger, I became convinced that I did not want to know anything about the Somerset Ho...

I have just got home from giving my Somerset House Embankment Galleries Conceptual Tour - went quite well and there is a lot to thing about - I'll be posting some thoughts in next few days - initial thoughts are that 1 I managed to keep to the sequence as dictated by the Arnolfini Exhibition and did not pick and choose my objects - there was a one to one mapping between the two tours. 2. Perhaps it became more satirical than I intended due to panic on my part. .

I am working on the tour of the Somerset House exhibition - 'Wouldn't It Be Nice Exhibition'. Brief given by Abake . Give a guided tour of the On Purpose exhibition at the Arnolfini but the tour is to take place at Somerset House at the 'Wouldn't it be Nice Exhibition.' I'm giving secrets away here but this is the brief I have set myself. 1. to do the tour as if it were a tour of the Bristol Show as straight as possible 2. But not to force the tour into absurdity - i.e. if there is an elephant in Bristol but not one in Somerset House don't keep referring to the Elephant to the confusion of the tour. (there is no elephant by the way) 3. Not to let the audience into the secret if I can help it. 4. To do the tour 'blind' i.e. not to visit the Somerset House exhibition in advance My aim is to keep my Arnolfini exhibition guided tour 'text' intact in my head and to use this to guide my tour in Somerset House. I think a prior viewing o...

I am typing this at the first Butcher's Shop event at the Old Operating Theatre Museum. The idea is Bad Idea's - a magazine for new writing. They are using the Museum amphitheatre to hold at interactive editing session. Writers submit their prose to be editing live in front on a audience. The event is sponsored by Hendrick's Gin - the Gin is Delicious and what is interesting is that it is made using quite a lot of ingredients which were used in the 19 th Century St Thomas Hospital - juniper and meadow sweet for example. I saw a couple of sections of the editing and they made it fun - so it became performative rather than academic. I can't say how good the learning was but the entertainment was high and those leaving were very complimentary - they loved the space and they enjoyed the evening.

Here is a link to the excellent Society of Antiquaries newsletter. Society of Antiquaries of London - Salon

My next walk is this Saturday at Somerset House - it is outside of my normal comfort zone and is part of a Design Exhibition and is a tour of the 'On Purpose' Exhibition which is currently on show at the Arnolfini in Bristol. The Tour, however, takes place in Somerset House, London......... On November 16th I return to a more sane guided tour of the Archaeology of the Origins of London. Free Guided Tour of the 'Wouldn't It Be Nice Exhibition' - but need to pay for entry to the exhibition. 2pm Saturday 1 Nov at Somerset House, Embankment Galleries Archaeology & the Origins of London Sunday, Nov. 16 at 10.45 am from Monument Tube, Fish Street Hill exit: Guided Walk ( For London Walks) looking at the changing understanding of the 'Origins of London' from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the present day.

I am working on a surprising project in association with Abake, the Arnolfini Bristol and Somerset house. Due to take place on Nov 1st. Arnolfini | On Purpose: Design Concepts Somerset House

history doesn't repeat itself but sometimes it rhymes' is a quote from Paul Saffo a forecasting expert. He is misquoting Mark Twain who said: history doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme. the link below goes to a good summary of Saffo's rules of good futurecasting, and has a further link to Saffo's article. Sox First: Six steps for forecasting

Went to see the Hadrian Exhibition at the British Museum - just before it closes. It was quite enjoyable in a surprisingly low key way - the word Blockbuster is entirely wrong for it. It was almost domestic in its interest. It did not provide much of an introduction to the Roman Empire or the problems of governing it but it did provide a biography of Hadrian starting with a memorial to his wet nurse and with collections of statues of his adoptive parents, wife, successors and his boyfriend Antinous. There was a little bit about the Pantheon, a model of his villa in Tivoli, and a strange series of finds from Caves from jewish refugees, which I assume were included to show the dark side of Roman rule, but they just made it clear how much else had been left out. Very few insights into the Romans except the portraits and the story of Antinous. I took my daughter who is studying Classical Civilisation and somewhat shocked to find she had to pay £12 to get in - surely children studying th...

Sayer Vincent have got some useful guides for Museums - latest one is on Gift Aid. Sayer Vincent - Publications

This is an attempt to bring an archaeological excavation in the City to life - using blogs and web 2.0 to create something of the experience of an excavation. It is an East London Roman Cemetary. Prescot Dig - The Site

Just received the final proofs of my chapter of 'London Stories' - which is to be published by Virgin Books soon. Terrible thing reading the proofs - funny how it does not seem so well written once the post-writing glow has gone! But of course at this stage the last thing they want you to do is to rewrite it all!

Mail reproduces artists visualisation of a Neanderthal created for National Geographic. Meet Wilma: The face of Neanderthal woman revealed for the first time | Mail Online

On Saturday I led a guided walk around Chelsea for june Bretherton's blind group. Its a great walk and it was really enjoyable trying to give the extra visual information. I think it would work as well for the sighted as the blind - it makes you need to give a more imaginative spiel. The walk has a reverse narrative - Kings Road is Chelsea today, while the work ends around Chelsea Old Church which is where Chelsea began. It has sub-themes of the Swinging 60's, City of Palaces, Henry VIII and ThomasMore, the PreRaphaelites, Literary London - Elliot and Bram Stoker and the court case of Oscar Wilde and Whistler. Have a look here for a short version of my walk . Walk back past Alpha Place - where i used to live in an Electricity Board property to find that the whole site has been cleared ready for redevelopment. It was a horrible 1960's building but a bit of my history has gone

This is a proposal for a new form of charity that obviates the need to have a system that needs to be monitored both by the Charity Commission and Companies house. The Charitable Incorporated Organisation

These new pages of the UK on line site have been made available. UKOLN | Cultural Heritage | Home Page

This is the announcement by BAD IDEA Magazine who are holding this event at the Museum. WELCOME TO THE BUTCHER'S SHOP! We're excited to announce a new monthly BAD IDEA event, The Butcher's Shop , beginning Thursday October 30th. Sponsored by Hendrick's Gin, who are providing complimentary cocktails, and held in the atmospheric environs of the Old Operating Theatre (behind London Bridge station) , in The Butcher's Shop BAD IDEA's editors will hack up your beloved prose and put it back together in a unique writing workshop and theatrical experience. Short stories submitted by guests are dissected, chopped up, and improved through an intensive process of live editing and debate. Along with an audience of 50 other writers, discuss and argue with BAD IDEA’s editors as they place your writing on a 19th century operating table – projected onto a big screen – and go to work removing inefficiencies, excising flabby adjectives and probing narrative structure, involv...

At long last the nave of Old St Thomas Church, Southwark is back in use and looking good. It has been restored by the Cathedral Group sympathetically to the architecture. They have kept the Nave as one space and added a new balcony on top of the old balcony. The crypt has been turned into great meeting rooms. It could make a grown man cry - because for years it was our dream to own the Church ourselves, but we never got a chance to make this a reality, so although it is great to see the place restored it is sad that it is not us that did it. However, the new owners have done a good job and have made life as easy for us as it is possible to do while the building work is being completed. So, that is the last time I'm going to refer to the what if and am going to embrace a new age with a good new neighbour. The scaffolding was also coming down and soon, oh bliss, we will soon be without building works disrupting the Museum.

I organised our stall for the London Maze today - a local history fair in the Guildhall. There were about half the people that attended the previous year. I had our tradition stall with basic info on the museum and sales of books, and toys. I experimented with a. the usb frame b. using the projector and laptop But results were that people were not bothered. Few spent at time looking at the slide show or the powerpoint. although a couple of people were impressed by the laptop and projector being as they are so small and light. Sales were a bit sluggish - most of the general history books sold, but just a couple of the medical ones, and no herbal books at all. Toys really did not sell except for a couple of people who wanted squishy skeletons or fly eating tongued toys. I did the 19th Century Surgery demostration 3 times which went well and Connie helped out in the afternoon. London Maze

This Saturday there is a History Fair at the Guildhall this Saturday from 10am onwards (Gresham Street, city of London, Bank Tube). The Old Operating Theatre Museum will be represented and will be doing demonstrations of Victorian Surgery. Kevin Flude will be there representing the Museum so if you visit please come and say hello. It is free and lots of societies and museums will be represented, free guided walks and various reenactments demonstrations and lectures on offer too. More details here http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/LGNL_Services/Leisure_and_culture/Museums_and_galleries/Guildhall_Art_Gallery/London_Maze/ Also at the Operating Theatre tomorrow night is: DIARY OF A MADMAN by Nicolai Gogol Adapted by Steve Hennessy Directed by Andy Burden, Performed by Seb Steiger In this perfectly atmospheric venue, a new adaptation of Gogol's tragicomic masterpiece that has toured theatres and psychiatric wards to great acclaim. A fascinating and frenetic account of one man...

This term I have been contacted by several schools to do a Victorian London walk as part of the A Level Curriculum. The Schools have found me from the web site. I've been doing a Dickens/Victorian London walk which starts at Borough High Street. It has been working well so far.

On the Aegean Cruise I had to edit the slides I had scanned and put them into power point. I took my EEE PC because it is light, and although it worked the small size of the screen and the software made it a little difficult. So I cannot entirely recommend it for heavy weight editing work but it works well enough for minor tinkering. I followed instructions to load Gimp which completely failed, so I gave up on that. I intended to use the Photoshop editor on the Web but a. it did not work on the EEE PC and b. the internet connections on MV Discovery were appalling. But I did find a way of working effectively. I used photomanager to look though lots of slides and used filemanager. I changed the view to thumbnail and configured filemanager to open up mtpaint on double clicking. mtpaint enables cropping (using the selection tool) and some touching up - did everything I wanted gimp for. The only remaining problem was getting rid of the unsuccessful Gimp installation

It has been confirmed that I am to continue as a Honorary Lecturer at UCL as I have been asked to give the 'Digitisation and Museums' module for the second time. It went very well last time - mainly because I got a lot of great lecturers in to help out! But if feels good to be lecturing there.

I've just come back from a Cruise on the MV Discovery which went from Venice to Istanbul, via Koper, Zadar, Dubrovnik, Hvar, Cephalonia, Delos, Ephesus and Istanbul. I was the lecturer for the Elderhostel group. It was very hard work but I enjoyed it. What I learnt from the Cruise was that it is a good way of seeing a lot of different places. No need to keep packing and unpacking and finding hotels in different towns. So a sense of easy touring. One issue is the number of Cruises taking the same or similar route - you arrive in Dubrovnik with 3 5000 sea ter cruisers and a couple of 1000 seaters. That means some 15,000 tourists descending on a small town all at the same time. I gave a series of lectures entitled: Celts and Romans Everyday Life in the Roman Empire Romans as Rulers The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Images from Santorini - Cruise Liner in the Caldera and a fresco from the Museum at Thera

Here are some lectures coming up in the next month which you may be interested in: * What is British Art? (Tate Britain) A Third Text project in collaboration with Tate Britain on Friday, 10 October at 10:00:00 More details: http://www.lecturelist.org/content/view_lecture/5957?mail=y * Black Georgians (Hunterian Museum, London) To mark Black History Month, the museum is hosting a study day examining the lives of Black children and servants in eighteenth and early ninteenth century Britain on Wednesday, 22 October at 10:00:00 More details: http://www.lecturelist.org/content/view_lecture/5932?mail=y * A History of Changing Women's Fashions (Grosvenor Museum) A look at womens fashions through the ages on Friday, 24 October at 14:00:00 More details: http://www.lecturelist.org/content/view_lecture/5918?mail=y * Britain since 1918: the strange career of British democracy (Sheikh Zayed Theatre, London School of Economics) LSE public lecture on Wednesday, 29 Oc...

Just to let you know that we are publishing, as an e-Book, an updated version of Paul Herbert and my book 'the Citisight's Guide to London' It was conceived as an interactive book and now we think the technology is right for us to republish it as an interactive ebook, which will finally allow the interactivety we planned to be used to its full. We now have to update the book before republishing it. I am pleased to see that Tony Clayton is continuing his publication programme and give you details of his latest event. I also include information on a William Blake Walk. Kevin Flude South East London Folklore Society presents LEGENDARY LONDONERS A talk by Antony Clayton Thursday 9th October 2008, 8pm The Old King's Head Kings Head Yard, 45-49, Borough High St, London, SE1 1NA. (Nearest stations are London Bridge and Borough) The author of The Folklore of London and popular SELFS speaker discusses the problems of separating fact from folklore in the lives and exploit ...

I see I am quoted in SE1 website re my comment on the proposed closure of the London fire Brigade Museum. But more importantly, sign up for the petition to save this fine and important London Museum. Petition launched to save London Fire Brigade Museum [2 October 2008]

* A logo for London – 100 years of design excellence (London Transport Museum) Oliver Green, London Transport Museum’s Head Curator, talks about one of the most successful and enduring logos of all time. on Thursday, 18 September at 18:30:00 More details: http://www.lecturelist.org/content/view_lecture/5778?mail=y More details: http://www.lecturelist.org/content/view_lecture/5777?mail=y * Benjamin Franklin and Women (The Benjamin Franklin House) An Insight into Franklin’s Female Relationships whilst here in London. Given by Lady Reid, one of Britain’s foremost Franklin Scholars. on Wednesday, 24 September at 18:30:00 More details: http://www.lecturelist.org/content/view_lecture/5785?mail=y And remember this week is: Open House Weekend The Old Operating Theatre is one of the many places that are throwing open their doors for free, next weekend. Sat and Sun 20th and 21st September 10.30-5pm 'To Celebrate London's Architecture Fre...

I've just been looking at installing the Gimp on my EEC Pc also keen to load Free mind mind mapping software. But looking at the posts it makes you despair of linux. They say things like Add repositories then type in apt something or other Then they say it may not give your permissions so you'll have to use sudo. If you follow the links to repositories - I assume you need to put in some file a list of places to look for installations, it then says scary things like You must only use xandros 4 repositories or else you will break you eec if you use debian sources. At this point you give up - and think windows is a wonderful think. In windows you can download a file clic on and you can be pretty much sure it will run. Not so it would seem with linux - you have to manually place the repository in some archane file in the etc bin, you have to check you have a safe repository, you then have to run several programmes from the command line. this will so put off most normal mortals. ...