Ignite 2010 at the Royal Opera House

Three below 7 at an opera; are you mad? clearly; but this was not an opera and was 6 below 7 (with more adults) So what was it? The Royal Opera House's annual contemporary arts festival "Ignite" now in its third year So what was it? Well... on the theme of forests around the world the ROH was taken over by various performance and visual artists for the weekend. Kids are very welcome (in fact actively encouraged to much of it). It was fun, atmospheric, educational; what more could you ask for?

Fun? The opening exhibit was essentially a large number of very large balloons; easily big enough for the kids to sit on jump on, etc. BANG! only once "how many is that?" I asked the curator; "I've got twice the number I need" was the response. And what did this have to do with forests? No idea, but it was very fun; in fact this proved so popular that it was neigh on impossible to drag them to...

Atmospheric? the smaller of the ROH's main performance spaces was converted into a forest made with old telegraph poles; a floor of recycled rubber from tiers (I think) provided a convincing forest floor and a background of John Cage or Javanese Gamalan provided the soundtrack. Wildlife? 1000 paper cranes were suspended in a large rectangle making a screen with a film projected on it.

And educational? An exhibition of an archaeological dig which took place in Germany uncovering a house made almost entirely of sweets and gingerbread. A truly exceptional piece of work revolutionising, for ever, the way we will look at Hansel and Gretel. It's all true? "Well, clearly Englebert took some liberties with the opera but everything else; of course" the curator; dressed in long white lab coat and thick rim glasses urnestly tells the children.

If you tell a joke in the forest and no-one is there to laugh; is it still a joke?

What: Deloitte Ignite 2010
Where: Royal Opera House
Getting there: The opera house is in Covent Garden and only a short walk from Covent Garden tube station
Cost: Free for most activities
Again: Yes; if it is half as good as this year we are still in for a treat

Weather day at the Royal Institution

Is that the The Royal Institute of Michael Fariday fame? that's the one! Not exactly child's play then. well... they do the famous children's lectures every Christmas so they at least know a bit about child's play and if you surround any self respecting child with things to play with you will get child's play.

So what was it? dotted around the institute were various experiments hosted by everyone in science from student to professor and from water to fire all around a theme of what makes the weather everywhere you go-o-o you always enough of that.

What worked? probably my favourite was the fire tornado (see picture) one could also make a whirlpool or a cloud in pop bottles, others that stood out were experiments with infra red cameras and pulling apart a vacuum sealed ball. What didn't? it was too humid for the Van de Graaff and we never did find the top of the barometer! What else was there? The buggies liked making snowflakes and a sundial and finally they had a weather balloon. All experiments were wonderfully set amongst the grand setting of tomes such as "The electrician 1891"

Does the sundial work? To demonstrate how it would work we shone a torch at it to show what the sun would do; "it won't really work in here though because there isn't any sun" I pointed out. "Yes it does," came the response "look its 11 o'clock"!

Where does bad light go? To a prism!

What: Family fun day
Where: Royal institution of Great Britain
Getting there: Walk from Oxford Circus or Green Park
Cost: £5 adults; £3 children
Again: Yes; they do several such events although none are currently on their events list.

The culture line

There is an article about this on the London for Kids blog on golondon.about.

It seems that some South and East museums on the new East London Overground line (formerly the East London Line) have got a web page of all their museums together. Looks like a great way of exploring the new places this opens up; more to come I think...

Museum of London

Haven't you already been there? yes, but... and you didn't really like it? no, but... So why this? Well, when we visited nearly two years ago half the museum didn't exist, or wasn't open and the buggies were all a lot younger.

So what's new? Essentially the last visit took us from the stone age through the Romans up to the middle ages and then stopped. This is upstairs; downstairs the story continues through to the modern day. I take it you only bothered with the downstairs. We did the first bit in order; the fire of London had gone but the prehistoric exhibition was still there and the kids enjoyed it just as much as last time, if not more. The middle ages had a reconstruction of a Saxon house giving them a chance to play at witches and look at a thatch roof close up.

And downstairs? We went the wrong way round starting from the modern day (obscure sculpture giving one of those moments when you're asked "What's that?" and can only answer "I don't know") back to the 18th Century. Anything worth recommending? In the 18th Century? Yes, the mock-up of Vauxhall Pleasure Garden's was excellent Complete with Scrumpets? Err, no, but some terrific hats! and in another time? The Victorian street was quite good but took a while to get them past the Victorian toy shop window at the start. They also had a lot of use of touch screen table devices which for older buggies would probably work well. Finally a display of modern London landmarks complete with a projected river that showed ripples when you walked over it provided a lot of entertainment.

"London has now become almost like a gigantic frog! With its long tongue it draws curious insects from all over the world inside itself!" - Mehmet Ildan.

Diana Memorials

Ahoy me hearties and god rest her soul! Not two things that usually to together.
But here in the Diana memorial playground they go together fine. OK; I get the “god rest her soul” what about “Ahoy me hearties”? the playground is themed on Peter Pan, pirate ship, tree walk, tee pees you get the idea.
I take it all three Buggies immediately ran off in all directions true, but the playground is fully enclosed with a man on the gate right by the coffee shop.
What did they make of it? My only attempt at showing them Peter Pan resulted in them refusing to watch anything as soon as a pirate appeared so they didn't really get the reference; that said they had lots of fun in the sand pit making a desert island and lots of fun on general climbing frames and slides and things.

How about the other more famous Diana memorial Sadly Mr Health and Mrs Safety beat us to it. not allowed to drink the water?
actually, I think that is the only thing you are allowed to do, or at least the only thing they didn't tell us about. So what can't you do? all the fun stuff; splashing, running in the water, walking in the water, running near the water, walking next to the water But... on the plus side, it is actually worth a visit and standing in the water was allowed.


What did the pirate say when his leg got stuck in the freezer? Shiver me timbers!


What: Diana memorials
Where: Hyde Park
Getting there: Tube to Bayswater
Cost: Free; but the playground will have queues on a nice day
Again: Aghhhhbolutely
Try: There are plenty of other playgrounds in London but none like this one
Top tip: Did I mention they have a coffee shop in the playground?

Persian New Year at the British Museum

Happy Nowruz. Ahhh, that will be Persian new year. As celebrated by the people of modern Iran? and the British Museum.
So how do the Iranians celebrate. Big feast; painting eggs; music, that sort of thing (according to Wikipedia). and the British Museum we listened to music; painted eggs made monster wings and tail and contributed to carpet tiles (I couldn't find any reference to the latter two in Wikipedia for Nowruz; but the monsters were based on Persian art and the Persians were famous for their carpets. And the big feast we took ham and cheese butties.

So what were the tiles? Each participant was given a white ceramic tile, pens to draw on glass and a sheet about a type of Persian art (we had geometric shapes). Using only two colours the participant then drew something inspired by what was on the sheet. Finally these were arranged according to strict rules into a complete display. How did it go down? B drew his tile with his standard rapid fire approach leaving D to complete his with all the precision of a 5 year old; this took half an hour so I take it as a success.

D's favourite "Painting eggs" fairly standard egg painting; we can repeat the exercise at Easter. It has to be said he put more effort into the tiles.

B's favourite tile "my one"

What: Persian New Year
Where: British Museum
Getting there: Walk from Holborn
Cost: Free

Medieval Armour at the Wallace Collection

The Wallace Collection; isn't that all about 18th Century furniture and paintings? yes, well, that and other stuff. We started off upstairs looking at these.

Did they find anything interesting? generally all D needs is an animal in a picture and he's happy to look at it and they had plenty of pendulum clocks for B & L.

What other stuff? we actually went hunting for a bowl made by Palissy showing snakes, lobsters and fish. did you find it? we gave up and started looking at armour on the ground floor instead. This showed armour and arms from various places throughout the world from European knight chic to samurai swards (horses and cannons included).

Any more? plus in the basement a few replica items including chain mail to try on? Sadly they only had adult sizes which kind of drowned L (aged 20 months). D's first reaction was "Hey! its like 'the return of the arthropods'"

On leaving the have-a-go-armoury we also found the relocated Palissy bowl; by then the Buggies weren't too interested though. Hey ho, another day...

What: Mainly armour
Where: Wallace collection
Getting there: Walk from Bond Street
Cost: Free
Try: The Tower has a good display of armoury; there is also the imperial war museum and national army museum (I haven't visited either).

What do you call a knight who is afraid to fight? Sir Render!