Theatre breaks in London September 14, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : theatre breaks, London theatre breaks, London , 10commentsEver thought about weekend theatre breaks in London?
**Book London theatre break tickets now, with hotel or travel and meal in any combination via DARnet through London Theatre Breaks**
It’s well known that in London we have lots of famous old theatres all around the Shaftesbury Avenue area of the West End ‘Theatreland’ as well as Drury Lane, Shakespeare’s Globe and the South Bank complex.
Ticket sales have struggled a bit in recent years, particularly during the Americans fear of flying after 9/11 in 2001. They were an important source of customers. The standard of some the shows dropped a bit too, with many of the great musicals being replaced by tribute band shows, but things are looking up again now.
Noel Coward
From February 2008, for example the great Noel Coward classic of “The Vortex” is playing at the Apollo Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. Felicity Kendal has been cast as Florence Lancaster.
Theatre Deals
Londoners themselves often don’t take advantage of the world class entertainment available in the capital, with out of town visitors making up the majority of theatre goers. The best plan is to arrive by train, plane or coach (never by car) and stay in a centrally located hotel so that getting back after the show isn’t an issue. It’s the central hotel which can add massively to the overall expense so that’s why a lot of people look for all inclusive package deal theatre breaks in London, or weekend deals, with just the cost of a restaurant meal or two to find after paying for the break in advance. Restaurants in theatreland are diverse and offer special pre-theatre menus for quite reasonable prices, so you can have a good night out in the area even if you don’t have show tickets for any particular evening. I often find myself wandering up from Charing Cross station and just following my nose, or else revisiting regular haunts.
Off West End
For those who don’t mind venturing a little further afield than the traditional tourist venues, there are always the Theatre Bars in Islington, Theatre Royal Stratford East, and others mentioned in OffWestEnd where some more challenging, contemporary and economical performances may be found.
Book Theatre Breaks in London
For booking a show and hotel package deal, with or without discount rail travel I’ve found one site which seems to have the best selection available and also offers a best price guarantee:
Book London theatre tickets now, with hotel or travel and meal in any combination via DARnet through London Theatre Breaks
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New UK foot-and-mouth discovered September 12, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : foot-and-mouth , add a commentJust as everything was getting back to normal terrible news that a new outbreak of foot and mouth disease has been confirmed about ten miles North of Pirbright, the vaccination laboratory, and outside of the previous exclusion zone.
“This is news that no one wanted to hear” said Hilary Benn, secretary of state for the environment.
FT.com / World - New UK foot-and-mouth discovered
Preliminary tests on samples taken from the cattle farm in Egham confirmed a new outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.“On the basis of these initial laboratory results and clinical symptoms Debby Reynolds, UK Chief Veterinary Officer, has confirmed foot-and-mouth disease,” Defra said in a statement.
“A movement ban of cattle, sheep, pigs and other ruminants has now been imposed in England and parallel arrangements are being made by the Scottish and Welsh administrations.”
As usual, it’s worth checking Warmwell
“The animals are being culled this afternoon”
and the expert opinion provided by Roger Breeze BVMS, PhD, MRCVS, Formerly Director, Plum Island USA Department of Agriculture.
So let’s set a new mission for a Pirbright (and a Plum Island) of the future, with decent funding, a new facility and talented staff who have some assurance their work is valued. Let’s protect the UK, US and everyone else - permanently - by eliminating foot and mouth as a threat to domestic livestock globally. We can control foot and mouth and the other major transboundary livestock disease threats in our lifetimes. No new technology is needed - just the vision, the will and the resources.
Ditch the firkin pint mile and pound September 11, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : politics, UK , 2commentsIs this good news?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6988521.stm
EU gives up on ‘metric Britain’
The European Union is set to confirm it has abandoned what became one of its most unpopular policies among many people in Britain.
It is proposing to allow the UK to continue using pounds, miles and pints as units of measurement indefinitely.
I don’t think so. On the one hand it’s correct that the decision to continue using antiquated units of measurement is up to the British to decide. Joining the metric club should be a voluntary progressive decision, not something imposed by a less than democratic European Commission. On the other hand if we carry on talking about miles and pounds indefinitely it’s going to make the struggling UK culture sound even more like a part of America and less European oriented. Besides all that, the base ten system is clearly more logical and simpler to learn than the historical mish mash of imperial measures.
Rogue Education Conference September 11, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : edublog, politics , add a commentVia socialistpartyaustralia.org an intriguing flyer for Rogue Education Conference in Melbourne this weekend.
From Friday 14th - Sunday 16th September, a gathering will take place at Trades Hall in Melbourne where people can critically examine this profound shift and build networks to resist it. We want to share stories, build networks, learn, argue, and inspire. We want to create a space that breeds engagement and resistance outside of elite institutions known as “Universities”.
INSTITUTIONS - students’ experiences of education institutions that have been radically altered under a right wing political system
CAPITALISM - all they taught you at school was how to be a good worker/ boss
DISSENT - we can learn a lot from campus based struggles and alternative approaches to education, both nationally and internationally
Upon downloading the conference programme, a calendar of speakers and discussion sessions includes such as the following:
Friday
An amazing documentary account of the New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation in the 60’s and 70’s. This story of a trade union whose social and political activities challenged the notion of what a union should be, is incredibly relevant to education activists and student unions today.
Saturday
Margaret Thornton: ‘The Impact of Commodification on the Student Experience’
Geoff Boucher: ‘Crisis Tendencies in Higher Education—Market Failures, Neoconservative Moralism and Technocratic Solutions’
Damien Cahill: ‘Neoliberalism and the War on Terror: The RealRoad to Serfdom’
Sunday
Engagemedia: the state of online independent media and how to use it as a campaign tool
Dave Eden: Treasonous Minds: Capital and Universities, the Ideology of the Intellectual and the Desire for Mutiny
Anja Kanngieser: It’s our Academy: Autonomous and Free Universities as a Strategy for Reclaiming Knowledge
Carol Peterson: Sick of the job networks compulsory bullshit training? Ways to resist for those people who haven’t given up on the social wage
London Bridge Animoto September 7, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : animoto, Music, video, London , 2commentsAnother Animoto movie, this time about London Bridge for the song “Cormorants“. After the one I captured from Animoto and converted for youTube recently, it was nice to get a comment from Tom Clifton of Animoto with a promise that we’ll be able to dowload high res versions “within a few weeks…?” That’s great Tom, I’m looking forward to being able to do that. Meanwhile here’s the embedded version of my latest short video, as served directly from Animoto’s own site.
The full version of the song “Cormorants” ( or should it be called London Bridge?) can be played, downloaded, scrobbled and embedded from it’s place on the Andy Roberts label at Last.fm
At last google reader has a search box September 6, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : internet, web2.0, tools , add a commentPossibly the most annoying inadequacy of Google’s news feed reader has at last been remedied. Hoo ray. It was alway confounding that the company which made a name for itself out of search couldn’t find a way to provide search on their own idiosynchratic implemention of a newsreader. I also wondered frequently why I stick with it instead of reverting to bloglines or the freestanding NetNewsWire. But I do, and it has a search box now, so there are only a few more annoying inadequacies left.
Apparently we have to thank Ben Chris and Jemma for finding the search box.
London Tube Workers Strike September 4, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : politics, London, UK , 1 comment so farLondon Underground tube mainentance workers went on strike today, as planned five weeks ago. The dispute is preciptated by the employer Metronet going into bancruptcy and the RMT union is campaigning for the maintenance of Transport for London’s undergound infrastructure to be brought back under public ownership. Labour Prime minister Gordon Brown and London Mayor Ken Livingstone both spoke out against the union but the strike was solid.
RMT leader Bob Crow welcomed last minute talks today:
http://www.rmt.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=100570
That is a positive development and we hope that Metronet and its administrator will now take our members’ legitimate concerns seriously.
Instead of shouting insults and pointing accusing fingers, all those involved should now recognise that those concerns need to be addressed.
It is five weeks since we gave the company notice that we were balloting over the issues involved, yet there was no sense of urgency until it became clear that our members were determined to win the unequivocal guarantees we are seeking.
Our members have shown their determination by delivering a rock-solid strike and, pending any positive outcome from today’s talks, it will remain on.
Community launch from an event September 3, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : distributed research, theory, Community, online facilitation, COP, edublog, web2.0 , 5commentsThinking about a community birth process which I’ve just witnessed during August, it seems appropriate to try and generalise and seek further applications. A month long training course, open and free to attend, generates a momentum of interest, good will, and community indicators.
“what are we going to do when it’s all over?”
“I’m really going to miss the daily podcasts”
“I’m a few days behind, will the content still be available?”
“this forum is the best I’ve ever been in”
So then one of the convenors makes the announcement that the thirty day challenge goes on forever, and an ongoing community of practice is born. Of course the momentum built up during an occasional time-delimited event cannot be sustained at the same level, which is just as well, but the chances of enough residual activity continuing to get a self-sustaining community off the ground are probably a lot greater through this method, whether pre-planned or not, compared with the precarious method of trying to build up a critical mass through recruiting ones and twos, adding member by member, month after lonely month.
And yet, often the last days of a temporary online gathering are used to acheive closure, to sum up, and say ‘thanks a lot, and goodbye’. I began to wonder what would happen if…..
What if the conference on Web2.0 in January 2006 had been encouraged to continue onwards in situ?
What if a hotseat event, where people gather to ask questions to an invited guest, were to be left open and made public to generate further discussion amongst the participants and others. Maybe each and every hotseat or conference has a potential to spawn a practice community, to provide a growing public space. Many will dwindle and peter out after a while but maybe some will flourish instead of being shut down and put away.
I’m sure there are a few other examples where an online learning event has spawned a persisitent community, but nowhere near as many as have been conveniently wrapped up and dispersed. It’s not as if anybody would be forced to hang around against their will, or that any measurable resources would be consumed to allow event based learning communities to live on.
Or to put it the other way around, if you are hoping to launch a distributed community of practice then consider starting off by organising a month long conference at a specific time and space, build up a sense of occasion and then take it from there.
Kinetic Sculpture September 1, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Art, video , add a commentI met Theo Jansen briefly last year in Trafalgar square at the time of his kinetic scupture exhibition - “Strandbeest”. The art in these strange mechanical scuptures came through via Theo’s own slightly eccentric anthropomorhic storytelling about them.
The professional video above brings out the visual asthetics of kinetic sculture much better in some ways, although the clip itself is a branded commercial for BMW.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
