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Open House London is something I’ve been meaning to do over the last couple of years and this year I wasn’t working so took the opportunity to look at a local building that I’ve always wanted to nose around. The Gaumant State  opened in 1937 on KIlburn High Road and was a very popular theatre, show venue, cinema and eventually a Mecca Bingo Hall before it finally closed. The Grade II listed building was acquired by a church group who are renovating the building and bringing it back to it’s former glory

Gaumant State - Kilburn

When Mecca too over the building they added false floors to cover the sloping seating and false ceilings to cover the pulleys and mechanisms for the curtain and stage. The Church will be removing these and adding in original seating. The only way you can tell you are standing where the stage was is because of the curtain still hanging above you, the flat false floor covered in bright blue and red carpet hiding what lays below.

Original Seating

The booth style  tables around the upper circle will also be removed and replaced with original style seating

Bingo Seating

The church believes they can get the 4,000 seater main hall back to it’s glory in the next 1.8 months. As part of the deal with the council the Church must make the Grade II listed building available to the public. The UKs largest working Wurlitzer still sits in pride of place next to where the stage should be and original light switches, electrics, signs and still stand proud.

Original light switches

One of the most standout things is the art deco style foyer that greets when you step inside off the grubby Kilburn High Road. Most impressive is the chandelier, a replica of one in Buckingham Palace I believe, that greets you. I hope to get back next year to see more of the building and see it, hopefully looking more like it was when it opened in 1937

Chandelier

On Tuesday (24/02/09) I headed down to Tiger Tiger on Haymarket or the Amplified 09 event, The “Network Of Networks”. For those in attendance and for those that weren’t I thought I’d put down a few bullet points of what I picked up from the sessions and a bit of feedback about the event that hopefully will prove useful.

From session #01 – The Future of Online Video

• Budgets are smaller than people imagine for short form content but expect broadcast quality
• Whilst equipment costs are down for the general public it’s still early adopters that are making use of higher quality equipment, this will change
• There will be further increase in UGC in News and events which Broadcasters need to embrace more. Video equivalent of Twitpic?
• Content appears in different silos dependent on what audience the producer wants to attract, there is no site for everything and that should continue. Whilst it would be nice for a centralised point of video (Kangaroo?) there are far too many rights/companies/producers etc involved
• Producers need to be made aware of curators of content to help push use on niche sites rather than just upload content to YouTube
• Studios/Broadcasters/Producers need to loosen rights restrictions to enable everyone to see content. We are becoming more unified as people regardless of geography.
• Monetizing amateur video is difficult and needs to be adressed

From #37 – Socialising Media – A spinoff from the Future of the Book and Online Video topics – how can we read/watch/listen together, even if we’re not necessarily in the same place or at the same time?

• Potential for Online video services to offer Premieres of content with chat services (like used in Blu-Ray Live) to feature Q&A’s with cast/directors etc.
• Virtual Book Groups – Based on Locations in books (possibly using something like Get London Reading, book groups without having to physically be there.
• Commenting/Chat on E-Readers (deals with providers?)

Other points that came up in discussions

• News Vs UGC – Users always go back  to Trusted sources, UGC helps get information out from an individuals POV
• Technology isn’t there yet for the masses to fully embrace and understand Social Media, we need to educate and show how it can benefit small businesses.

Thoughts on the event itself:

• Venue was too dark in places
• An hour was about right for each session
• Topics should have been set to pre-assigned tables as it was difficult to find appropriate sessions
• Should have allowed more time for more sessions, a whole day rather than an afternoon start
• A non-bar venue would be better, people seemed distracted by the time the third session was on and a separate after event drinks venue.
• More virtual tables

I want to say thanks to everyone who set up the event, overall I think it was great

I paid a visit with some friends to the Imperial War Museum this weekend. I’ve not been since a child, it’s one of the many places in London that whilst its so close to home that I forget it’s there. Luckily for me a friend needed to visit for a University project so a few of us got together and went along. As with most of my trips these days I took my camera and my camera bag.

After taking a couple of shots of the big guns outside we made our way into the building. As with a lot of museums there are bag checks. As I already had my camera out I placed my bag and the camera on the table and opened the top zip pocket to reveal my personal bits and pieces, keys and the like, and then the camera section which had my additional lens and other related items in it.

Imperial War Museum - Guests

On spotting my camera the security guard, without hesitation, piped up saying that photography was fine in the museum. Having been to museums and galleries before that haven’t allowed photography it was really nice that they made it clear that it was ok. Whilst I wasn’t trying to push my luck or anything and because I wanted clarification I said to the guard that I presumed that it didn’t include flash photography which I thought would have been fair, but no he said it was OK around most of the museum. Whilst I didn’t see any “no flash photography” signs in the areas I saw, the fact that a lot of the exhibits were in glass cabinets in dark areas which would have been difficult to shoot without a flash because of low light and with a flash because of reflections made me think this is what he was referring to. The same guard also mentioned that photography was fine to a friend in the group when his bag was checked as well.

It’s nice to see a museum being photographer friendly and their staff clued up on it all.

There is something magical about Kew Gardens for me, everytime I’ve been over the last couple of years I’ve visited with different people and at different times of the year so have had lots of different experiences there. Everything changes each time you visit, some work is always being done to improve the views, the plants, the information everything.

On this visit the new thing for me was the tree-top walkway After a first failed attempt to take a 3 year old round, he wanted to go up but didn’t like it when we got up there, I went back up and wandered around. The view was good but not amazing, mainly due to the cloudy weather. It was nice to get up close to the trees and see things from their point of view. I reccomened a trip to Kew for anyone living in or visiting London and you should make a point of getting up the tree-top walkway if you don’t mind heights, just don’t forget the green houses, other buldings in the grounds and the large pond.

Silhouette view from the Tree-Top walkway

Flickr Set – Photos from February trip to Kew Gardens

I grew up out in the suburbs but London was always about, when my Dad started working in town the appeal of the big city grew on me more and the small trips on the trains and tubes to the tourist spots with my parents excited me. One thing that was always a constant, especially when I began to work in town and live closer towards the centre of town, was that everything I saw of London was from ground level.

The Offices I’ve worked in and flats lived in have all been no more then two or three floors up and whilst some had nice views of the river others had just other buildings and dirty high streets. I’ve been up the London Eye once and took in the view of the main tourist sites you can see from there. The weather wasn’t especially great but you could see quite a few things.

This weekend the impact of London on me changed, I knew London was big, I’ve travelled through most stops on the tubes to nearly all the ends of the lines, and headed further out on the mainline trains but nothing prepared me for the view I got Saturday afternoon.

I’d spent the early afternoon walking through town, I strolled from Bond Street, across Oxford Street and down to Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue to look for Christmas presents for friends and family. Whilst the shopping trip wasn’t fruitful for presents it was for me (DMZ vol 1, 100 Bullets Vol 3 and Firefly – Better Days). After leaving the shop I placed a quick call to a friend to see if the arrangements they had said they would be able to sort were still on and they were, and with that I made my way to the junction of Charing Cross Road, Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road.

This is where the fun began. I made my way into Centrepoint and met my friend who spoke to th receptionist who let us through. Standing waiting for the lift nervous excitement was beginning to bubble up and once in the lift a small smile took over my face. We zoomed up missing floor after floro before quickly reaching our destination. I walked out and stepped into Paramount’s bar and dining area taking in the beautiful brass bar and the swish seating, but this wasn’t why I was here. we walked back out and up a short set of stairs. I was here, the viewing gallery. The view took my breath away and the small smile was now a massive grin.

Sunset Over London

The viewing gallery goes round 360 degrees with various armchairs and seating all the way around the middle and it was on one of these chairs I placed my bag and took in the view across West London. The sun was starting to fade and the sky was clear, I’d luckily got good weather and thats whwen I began to get to work. I ended up spending an hour going in circles around the gallery with the light quickly fading to being really quite dark and the city lighting up. Using my tripod and remote I managed to grab plenty of long exposures over the course of the hour trying to fit in the main landmarks and roads.

New Oxford Street

It was great to experience London from a view I had never seen before and my luck with the weather and light made it so much more amazing. To see the rest of the photos from the top of Centrepoint take a look at View From Paramount / Centrepoint – A Flickr Set

I’m a Shane Meadows newbie, I’d not seen This is England or Dead Mans Shoes so didn’t have any expectations of the film. I knew the basic premiss in advance from the trailers and knew of the Eurostar affiliation but that was it.

The film shows the growing friendship of two young out of town boys bought together through odd circumstances in the Somers Town area of London.

Beautifully filmed in black and white the story of Tommo and Marek flips from farce to farce via affection for a particular female and the gritty London some of us love and hate. With Tommo crashing at Mareks without the knowledge of the laters father and the boys earning cash from a neighbour their friendship expands as the boys get to know each other. Shane Meadows does extremely well to show how differing personalities and cultures form part of the heart of not just friendships, relationships and parental love but the places around us.

The young actors playing the two lead roles are brilliant, the dialogue is delivered beautifully like a real conversation between teenage boys and not an overly scripted attempt to make people think that it is what kids talk like that seems to be in mainstream media

Despite a slightly sentimental ending that doesn’t really take away anything from the film this is definitely worth a watch

rating: 4 stars