Street Art in London Continued

This is a continuation of yesterdays post which saw us in London having our own little private tour of Brick Lane and Shoreditch taking in various street art en route. Here you have many shops selling vintagey things - mainly clothing but also furniture etc.You can also discover a number of delightful boutiquey shops selling  jewellery and other bits and bobs.

We popped into a vintage market and saw that a lady there had a fine display of vintage sunglasses!

The sun outside was making someone squint and so we came out of the market with some sunglasses!

I don't know if you can see in the above photo but the glasses are mirror fronted - as demonstrated in the photo - Oh dear, I should have taken a better photo than to show you double yellow lines and some industrial bins but you see Our Daughter was just so excited that I'd bought them and wanted to wear them!

 We came across another art work by someone called "DON".

We continued to walk to an area where we had previously seen some work by Alice and C215. Their artwork was still there. Previously we had had to enter a tunnel like bit to get at this art, which was a bit spooky and scary - the tunnel was no longer there only the metal supports where the art was placed! Many buildings in the surrounding area are in the process of being demolished.

A C215 artwork which is on a pillar very close to the Alice one.

A better photo to show you those cool (!) glasses. You can make out a Malarky painted shop shutter in them.

We walked through the car park towards the legal wall - artists are allowed to paint on this wall and  it is here that you therefore find the bigger pieces! We could see that there was some new art here but there were some cars and vans in the way. 

We walked nearer to the wall to get a better look - I couldn't do this quality of art right side up let alone sideways up!

We carried on walking and came across this new art work.

Another pair of sunglasses had also been purchased in the vintage market - Our Daughter does her impression of Mr. Magoo in them! These glasses are fun as they make everything look a shade of blue!

We came across more new work!

And some that we had seen before - by C215.

And another C215 artwork!

We passed this bicycle on the way. I liked the yellow frame and wheels!

We walked up to The Old Foundry". It had new artwork by "Phlegm". This building is scheduled for re-development - there is an artwork by "Banksy" inside which has a preservation order on it and has made the building worth a £100,000 more than its market value! You can also see a yellow "Invader" tile above the artwork.

On The Old Foundry we also came across another work by "DON".

A closer look at the work of "Phlegm".

This work by "Phlegm" was also at The Old Foundry.

We saw a colourful mural / street art nearby and went to have a closer look. It had the main character from "Up".

This wall was near to a large block of flats. I don't think that I could permanently live in a block of flats with just a tiny little balcony area as your garden. The planners of the 1960's who thought this was a good way to live did not understand the human psyche for needing space. The Government says that it is planning to relax the rules on house building  - you can bet your bottom dollar that developers will be looking at green belt land rather than making improvments to derelict buildings on brown sites. There should be incentives by way of Government grant to developers who work with existing buildings rather than allowing developers to build boxes from scratch! Our house here in Hampshire was a new build 15 years ago - it is in a good location but it has nowhere near the style and character of an older property. I digress!

The street art / mural in full!

Shortly after this photo was taken we caught a taxi back to the hotel.

In the evening we went to see the last performance of Betty Blue Eyes at the Novello Theatre - see www.bettyblueeyesthemusical.com/

We had seen the production previously and still can't believe that it only had a six month run - dwindling ticket sales meant that it had to close. The theatre was full for the last night and had been full when we had seen the show before. It was a very emotional night for the stars - who at the end received a thoroughly well deserved ten minute standing ovation. Sarah Lancashire who played the main part shed a tear as did some of the other performers.

It is hard to understand why some shows are a success and others aren't. This one should not have failed!

"Matilda - The Musical" is coming to London in October. We saw this in Stratford when it had a three month run. This is a fantastic show and I'm sure will be destined to run and run. The main characters have transferred from Stratford - Miss. Trunchbull, the headmistress - is superb!

I think I will need to book tickets to see this again - next year maybe!

On Sunday morning we walked from our hotel to Covent Garden and from there caught a taxi to Guildhall Yard, Gresham Street to see the Pearly Kings and Queens Harvest Festival! Plenty of photos from that in a later posting!

Until next time,

June.