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Natural History Museum: Wildlife Garden: Butterfly

Wildlife Garden at Natural History Museum Celebrates 20-Year Anniversary

Few visitors to the Natural History Museum are aware of the ‘living exhibit’ in the grounds. However, this year, the low-profile Wildlife Garden celebrates its 20-year anniversary.

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Charles Dickens Museum: Charles Dickens Desk & Chair. Photo Credit: © Charles Dickens Museum.

Charles Dickens Desk Saved For Nation

Although on display at the Charles Dickens Museum in Doughty Street, the desk was privately owned and although it had been passed down through the Dickens family after his death in 1870, it was auctioned for the Great Ormond Street Charitable Trust in 2004.

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Broach Schizophrene by Bryan Charnley

Bethlem Museum Of The Mind Opens

The Bethlem Royal Hospital better known as Bedlam was set up in 1247 as Europe’s first centre dedicated to the treatment of psychiatric illness.   It has moved between various locations in London – including at the building that is now the Imperial War Museum.

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Red Ballet Shoes

Shoes: Pleasure And Pain Exhibition at Victoria & Albert Museum

The Shoes: Please And Pain exhibition will look at the extremes of footwear from around the globe, presenting around 200 pairs of shoes ranging from a sandal decorated in pure gold leaf originating from ancient Egypt to the most elaborate designs by contemporary makers.

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The historian Alan Judd speaking on the mic, with Tim Laurence, chair of the Blue Plaque Trust, standing near the loud speaker.

The Original Judy Dench* – Blue Plaque Unveiled at Horse Guards Hotel

Commander Mansfield Cummings, founding father of the Secret Service, has at last received his Blue Plaque. It was unveiled Monday 30 March, with your correspondent in attendance, not, as I had anticipated at the site of the Cummings’ 1923 death – corner of Melbury Road and Addison Road, W14 – but the site of the first proper SIS office and workshop on top of the National Liberal Office, aka Horse Guards Hotel.

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APTG prize winner Sophie Malaria raceiving her Blue Badge from the Reverend David Stanton, Canon of Westminster

28 New London Guides Receive Their Blue Badges

28 successful candidates from the 2013-2015 London Blue Badge Course were presented with their badges by the Reverend David Stanton, Canon of Westminster at a ceremony in Westminster Abbey on Thursday 16 April. 

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Prismes Electriques 1914

Sonia Delaunay Exhibition at Tate Modern

A new exhibition at Tate Modern will showcase the work of Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979) who was a key figure in the Parisian avant-garde and became the European doyenne of abstract art.

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Minton Elephant 1889

Sculpture Victorious Exhibition at Tate Britain

Powerful, beautiful and inventive, the Victorian era was a golden age for sculpture. Tate Britain’s exhibition Sculpture Victorious celebrates some of the most astonishing and lavish works produced in this groundbreaking period.

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Design for Heerlikheid Park, Hoogvliet

All Of This Belongs To You Exhibition at Victoria & Albert Museum

At a time when Britain will be engaged in the democratic process of an election, the Victoria & Albert Museum will examine the role of public institutions in contemporary life and what it means to be responsible for a national collection.

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Marking the Centenary of the Gallipoli Campaign

There’s a Turkish saying that one disaster is better than 1,000 pieces of advice. Whatever myths created about it in the last 100 years, Gallipoli was a disaster. The Turks won. Gallipoli was the British Empire and France trying to knock Germany’s ally Turkey out of World War One, thereby reducing the pressure on the Allies’ eastern front. As the historians say, “Gallipoli was launched almost casually, into a void, and was doomed to fail.”

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National Theatre London. Photo Credit: © London & Partners.

National Theatre Behind the Scenes

On a rather dreary and wet day, two dozen Blue Badge Tourist Guides met in the foyer of the National Theatre for a “behind the scenes” tour. We were split in two groups, all dressed in fetching high viz jackets. Even before we set off our little band was buzzing with excitement, as we were promised a goody bag full of information leaflets on our way out.

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Statue of Eros

Gay Scandals & Queer London

On a recent education and training session, we met in Piccadilly Circus near the Shaftesbury Memorial and the statue of Eros. Fellow Blue Badge Tourist Guide Martin Harvey who led the session started off by talking about “meetings”, apparently we were in the ideal meeting place! The only challenge for us initially, was that he was talking in another language – “Polori”. Once translated, we understood it was the gay version of Cockney Rhyming slang which facilitated secret communications. So we started on the route from Piccadilly through Soho to Chinatown.

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