The Olympic Park Reopens

Could you not come to see the Olympics? Now, although it’s not the same, you can visit the Park where the Games took place. (Tickets: £15 for adults and £7 for children.)

The Park in Progress tours will receive visitors from 29th March until 23rd June, on weekends and during school holidays. For now, 20,000 tickets have been sold.

Visitors will go up into the top, 115-metres-tall, of the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower, designed by artist Anish Kapoor and architect Cecil Balmond. From this observatory they will see the Olympic Stadium, cycle track and Copper Box. Sadly the basketball and hockey's arena and the world’s biggest McDonald’s were demolished. However, the view from the Orbit is the best place to see the transformation.

With the ticket you will see, as well, the two viewing galleries. The exhibition rooms include a group of displays and activities to tell the history, past and future, of the Park.

On 27th July it will be the London 2012 Olympics Games first anniversary. Concerts and more attractions will be waiting for you.

Super Mario Bros in the Tube

The English Harry Beck created the actual London Underground Tube map in 1931 in his break time while he was working as an engineering draftsman at the London Underground Signals Office

Since then, lot of people want to reinvent it the famous map and modernize it. Reddit, user NaturalBeats, designed a new artistic map covering Zone 1. It’s the London Underground in Super Mario 3’s style.

Dragon Boundary Marks

Tourists who are visiting London think that they are seeing one city. But the true is very different. What we believe is London, is actually Greater London. This area, conceived in 1965, is formed by the City of London and 32 boroughs surrounding it. But we can’t confuse this two terms. 

The City of London, with 2.90 km² and a population of 7000, has a city status in its own and is the smallest ceremonial county of England because of the population and expansion. In addition, it is the richest square mile in the world. However, Greater London has 1,572 km2 and more than 8 millions inhabitants. This structure holds two cities: the City of London and the City of Westminster.          

Small Dragon at High Holborn

Small Dragon at High Holborn

It’s easy to know when you are in the City of London and when you are in Westminster but, if you are lost, the dragon boundary marks will help you. These statues, for hundreds of years, have protected the main entrances to the City. The silver dragons have wings and a red tongue and they are holding the City of London’s shield, that it's bearing the red cross of St George and the sword of St Paul.

The fierce dragon in Temple Bar Memorial on Fleet Street, nowadays restored and installed by St Paul's Cathedral, served in 1964 as a model to create the two originals boundary marks, established in Victoria Embankment. There are a couple of replicas in London Bridge and High Holborn and single replicas in Bishopsgate, Aldgate High Street, Aldersgate, Moorgate, Farringdom Street and Blackfriars Bridge.

Ice Skating in Regent's Park

London, in Christmas, is fully decorated. Despite the greys that invade the city the rest of the year, in this season everything is colour, happiness and light. So, if you want to seem like a Londoner, you will have to practise one of their favourite sports: ice skating. 

In December you can find ice skating rinks all over the city. The most incredible rinks, because of the size and views, are situated in Somerset House, Hyde Park, The Tower of London, or The Natural History Museum. However, one of the favourite rinks for the tourists is the Eyeskate, emplaced in front of the London Eye. 

St. James’s Park. 21st January 2013.

The ice rinks, as we know them, are pretty new. In London, in the Victorian era, the tradition was to skate over the frozen lakes and ponds. However, on the 15th of January of 1867 the unthinkable occurred. When hundreds of people were skating in Regent’s Park, the ice began to weaken and cracked. Around 500 Londoners fell down into freezing water, 12 feet deep. The cold temperatures quickly froze the ice again and finally 40 people died. 

This wasn’t the first time that something similar happened. The day before, the ice broke and 21 skaters plunged into the same lake. This time all of them were rescued saved and sound. 

Londoners learned their lesson and, to avoid future tragedies, they reduced to 4 or 5 feet the lakes' depth.

Mind the Gap

When you are travelling in the underground, it doesn’t matter the country where you are, you have to be careful and don’t put your foot into the hole when you are entering in the train car. In New York we can see "mind your step". In Japan, for example, they say "Densha to homu no aida wa hiroku aite orimasu no de, gochuui kudasai", "Atenção ao intervalo entre o cais e o comboio" in Lisbon or "Attention à la marche en descendant du train" in Paris. 

But the most famous warning is the Londoner “mind the gap” or the variant: "Please mind the gap between the train and the platform." 

The phase was created in 1968. The underground workers were worried because they had to alert the passengers all the time. So the managers decided to record a brief notice. 

Some of these warnings were recorded by British artists like Emma Clarke, on Bakerloo, Central and District lines or Tim Bentinck, on Piccadilly line. The original voice in the Northern, for more than forty years, was the actor Oswald Laurence. Last November, Embankment Station, the only place where this recording was still being used, installed a new system. Oswald, who died in 2007, stopped to warn us. 

His wife Margaret McCollum could hear her dead husband’s voice when she was travelling in Tube. She was destroyed when she realized she could never listen to Oswald’s speech any more. Margaret wrote a letter to the Underground’s Director because she wanted to have the advice’s record, as a memory. 

Widow's determination has been the key. Now Margaret has a CD with a copy of the announcement. Besides, all travellers can listen again Laurence's voice in Embankment Station. 

The 39 Steps

If you want to know the most creative part of London you must walk across the West End. This terminology includes mythical places like Charing Cross, Covent Garden, Soho, Leicester Square, Regent Street, the Seven Dials or Holborn. But West End is not only streets and monuments. It’s pure theatre. 

The Criterion Theatre dominates Picadilly Circus for 137 years. Today it is possible to buy, at a really good price, a ticket to enjoy The 39 Steps, a play performed in this auditorium since the 20th of September of 2006. 

Alfred Hitchcock used the John Buchan’s adventures novel to create, in 1935, one of the best Britain movies ever. Years later, the English playwright Patrick Barlow collected from these two classics, added English humour, in the Monty Python style, and wrote a story to be represented by four actors only. 

The play starts with a monologue of our hero, Richard Hannay, performed by Adam Jackson-Smith. The laughs were guaranteed. A new friend, a murder and the plot was served. The main character suffered chases and he must escape away from spies, cops, killers and beautiful women. 

Jennifer Bryden performances the main three female characters. Annabelle Schmidt, the super-spy with German accent; Pamela, the beautiful blonde woman; and Margaret, the Scottish farmer. 

Andy Williams and Stephen Critchlow hold the responsibility in the play. 100 minutes, 135 characters. Spies, farmers, cops, business men, women, hotels owners, mentalists… These artists can do all the personages that you can imagine, obviously in a comical way. They wear hats, clothes and wigs that allow them to change the character with a hilarious velocity. In a concrete moment in the function, they aren’t going to get their accoutrements changed behind the curtain but in front of all the spectators, in the stage. This situation will add, even more, mirth and fun. 

A special refer deserves the Chinese shadows, the toy trains, the waterfall and all the gadgets that the Director, Maria Aitken, uses to achieve theatre inside the theatre. And, evidently, mentions to the master Hitchcock. Vertigo and Psycho appear in the stage to add another touch of humour. 

This adaptation, this new form to do theatre, works. The play has won the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2007, the Drama Desk Awards for Unique Theatrical Experience and Outstanding Lighting Design the year later, and is the winner of two Tony Awards. 

This theatrical clownishness is to die for. So, do not miss it!