The National Gallery opens a new exhibition on Tuesday, 8 January, featuring works by the six artists who have been selected as candidates to have their work displayed on Trafalgar Square’s famous Fourth Plinth.
The plinth is in the northwest corner of the Trafalgar Square just below the National Gallery itself and unlike its sister plinths in the area it has remained empty since it was built in 1841. Down the years there’s been much discussion about what should be installed there, from statues of famous generals to one of Nelson Mandela.
Since 1998 there’s been a rolling programme of new art commissions
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* Pub chain JD Wetherspoon limits adults accompanied by children to two alcoholic drinks in their pubs. The number of non-alcoholic drinks served to people with minors will also be restricted. Metro
* Britain’s oldest emigrant quits the country for a new life in New Zealand at age 102, says he’s given it long enough but the country’s really gone to the dogs under Labour. DailyExpress
* Energy companies jack gas and electricity prices, the average UK household bill now nearly £1,000 per year. Telegraph
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This Sunday, 6 January, the annual Bankside Twelfth Night festival takes place along the banks of the River Thames close to the Globe Theatre and Tate Modern starting at 12.45pm.
Twelfth Night is the traditional end of the Christmas season and the festival shows how the church adapted existing pagan midwinter festivals to have a Christian meaning. The festival is put on by the Lions part, a group of professional actors who perform in costume while making their way along the embankment.
The programme starts with the Holly Man, a pagan figure
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The Department of Transport(DTI) has announced the relaxation of restrictions on the amount of hand luggage travellers can carry onto planes flying from Britain’s airports. Starting tomorrow 7 January providing the airport has installed new security scanners passengers will be allowed more than one piece of carry on baggage.
Being the UK there’s always a catch and the one here is that not all airports have the new equipment. Some London airports including Heathrow, Stansted and London City, do have the new scanners, but Gatwick and Luton don’t. Also the DTI says that airlines apply their own rules and some like Easyjet are going to keep limiting passengers to one piece of hand luggage.
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January is a fairly slow time for new movie openings in London although there are two major premieres happening early next week, both in Leicester Square.
9 January - Charlie Wilson’s War This looks an interesting film, its supposedly based upon a true story about a little known Texas Congressman who gets involved with funding the Afghan Mujahideen against the invading Soviets in the 1980s. It stars Tom Hanks in the title role alongside Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman with Mike Nichols directing. The premiere is at the Empire Leicester Square and the stars are almost certain to be on hand.
10 January - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street One of the big films of the year
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With Christmas and the New Year over many people are making resolutions to take more exercise and get fitter. If you over did it with the food and booze during the holiday a useful website to help give you some motivation to shed a few pounds by walking more around London this year is walkit.com.
The site’s aim is to encourage more people to walk by helping them to make informed decisions on when is a good time to walk rather than use a car, bus, tube, train or taxi. They do this by having a search engine that just requires you to enter where you are and where you want to get to, and then a map will come up with the suggested route as well as the distance, estimated time for fast, medium or slow walking, the calories burned at each pace
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