England

London: Buoyed by Stuart Broad's match-winning burst at Lord's, England will look to seal a series win over New Zealand in the second and final test starting at Headingley on Friday before turning

The plan to host a music festival on the Heath has reappeared. OnBlackheath have applied to host a festival in September, sponsored by John Lewis. See the email sent by the Blackheath Society earlier today: We have received confirmation that OnBlackheath (previously NIMBY) has applied, at this late stage, to Lewisham Council for permission to hold a two day pop festival on the Heath on September 7th/8th. The event is apparently to be sponsored by John Lewis and called “John Lewis on Blackheath”. Little further information is currently available. Members will recall that the Society lost its appeal against the granting of the Premises Licence for this event (in perpetuity) in 2011. However, we are fortunate that this current application takes place in the context of an Events Policy for the Heath agreed as a result of the earlier controversy, and with procedures well defined. Any such application has to be considered by the Blackheath Joint Working Party, and a detailed Event Management Plan has to be submitted and agreed before Lewisham issue any final permission. We expect to play a full part in this process, and will keep members fully informed. The issues which caused serious concern last time will be re-examined in this exercise. Members views and feedback are always welcome, at any stage. Please play nicely in the comments…

Ballast Quay Garden Poke around private and little known London gardens the weekend of 8-9 June. Over 200 gardens throw open their gates to the public for Open Gardens Squares Weekend, a chance to get into those green spaces that are usually out of bounds. Gardens range from historical private squares (like Chester Square, Belgravia) to contemporary roof gardens (like on the IPC Media building on Southwark Street), prisons (HMP Holloway!), herb gardens (Eastbury Manor House) and barges (Downings Road Moorings at Tower Bridge). There are events all over London so there should be something happening near you. It’s not just flower appreciation either: there’s a gin bar in Arlington Square, edible walks in the City of London and art installations, music and Punch and Judy elsewhere. A weekend ticket costs £10 in advance, £12 on the weekend itself, children under 12 go free. Check the full list of gardens for opening times and restrictions. Similar-but-different is an open gardens event in Greenwich on 2 June and 9 June, raising funds for restoring St Alphege’s church. Six or seven houses are opening up on each day, sometimes providing Pimms, wine or teas. Gardens cost £3 each to enter or £10 for the full day. The Greenwich Phantom has more information. Open Gardens Squares Weekend is organised by the London Parks and Gardens Trust and runs 8-9 June. For more information and to buy tickets, see the website.

If like me, you are a Pinterest fan, you no doubt spend more happy hours avidly collecting crafting ideas than actually creating them. Which is why the concept of Pinterest Parties have become all the rage in America, where crafting fanatics can meet up to bring their Pinterest lusts to life in the real world. Over here in lil old London Sarah and Plum (above) are the two enterprising ladies behind Pinned it! Made it! Pinterest Parties, held in Hackney Downs Studios. I of course jumped at the chance to attend one of their events, where I could learn how to make my very own Day of the Dead style floral headband, ideal garb for festival goers this season. You can find all the aforementioned Pinterest inspiration for these floral crowns on the Pinned it! Made it! board here. After a yummy Ilegal Mezcal cocktail (served up a jam jar by Qui Qui Ri Qui) we were given a brief demo by Marianne Johnson of Wild by Nature, a florist of some 15 years. She inducted us into the sticky ways of florist tape, a wonderful thing that enables spiky bits of wire to be glued together into one smooth mass. We were then directed to a table heaving with a colourful selection of fake flowers, and it was heads down all round, as we set about creating our floral crowns. As they began to take shape it became apparent that we were all creating very individual looks, and that is surely one of the best things about making something yourself: yes, you probably could buy something like this off the peg, but my creation will never look like yours. And I like that feeling! At the end Anna Wild gave us a brief demonstration of how to create full on Day of the Dead make up. I’m not really the type to dress up all crazee for festivals, but in a light bulb moment I realised that I’m now sorted to go as Frida Kahlo to a big fancy dress party I have been worrying about. All I need for that is copious quantities of eyebrow pencil. The Pinned it! Made it! ladies post all their events onto facebook, and of course, onto Pinterest. You can also find upcoming events on eventbrite. Find what tickles your creative fancy and then get your craft on by signing up for a Pinned it! Made it! party soon – the next one on June 18th will be blinging up sunglasses, inspiration here. It was a fab way to spend an otherwise ordinary weekday evening: I’ll leave you with some of the fab creations that the girls at my table made.

Michael Landy was always seen as an odd choice for an artist in residence at the National Gallery. Landy is famously known for his piece of performance art where he destroyed all of his possessions over the space of two weeks. So to place him in a gallery whose focus is the preservation of art was always going to produce interesting and unpredictable outcomes. Landy has been inspired by the gallery’s works, particularly the paintings of saints and has produced a series of contemporary drawings and sculptures that reflect his take on their stories. Many Christian saints met terrible ends but it’s easy to look at the ornately framed masterpieces in the National Gallery and forget about the pain and torture they depict – Landy brings this reality home quite literally with a bang. Saint Jerome is said to have beaten himself to repress his sexual urges; press a foot pedal and Landy’s kinetic homage repeatedly bashes its chest with a rock.  There’s also a brutality in the representation of Saint Apollonia as she jams a pair of pliers into her mouth to extract a tooth – this being one of the tortures she was said to have endured. His drawings are interesting experimentations on the saintly theme but it’s his six kinetic sculptures that are the main draw. They are interactive, noisy and less than reverential – at odds with everything we’ve come to expect from the National Gallery. And that’s what makes them so refreshingly entertaining. Another exhibition at the National Gallery marks the 80th anniversary of the Barber Institute in Birmingham with a loan of the its founding paintings. The two highlights are Poussin’s emotive painting capturing the death of Tancred and a Monet sunset so vivid it’s as if you were there with him as he painted. Both exhibitions are on at the National Gallery. Michael Landy: Saints Alive until 24 November and Birth of a collection: Masterpieces from the Barber Institute of Fine Arts until 1 September. Admission to both is free.

123 to Ilford 2011-04-19 10:38:05 Flickr | Facebook page | Twitter | POSTCARD BOOK originally published on my old site on 2011-04-21 12:22:20

Tiny Massachusetts auction house Altair made a splashy debut this March with a $1.7m vase that the Boston Globe noticed didn’t seem right. Now the paper has pretty convincing evidence that the work of art was bought a year earlier in Iowa for under $5,000 and is simply a 20th Century reproduction of the 18th Century piece it purported to be. That has left Benjamin Wang, the owner of Altair, scrambling to save face: Wang and his lawyer, [Orestes] Brown, say that the vase seller, Hua, gave them the false provenance, the documented history of ownership that buyers rely on in part to determine the value of art and antiques. According to Brown, Hua also attached a sticker to the bottom of the vase showing it had last been auctioned on Feb. 23, 1989, at a Christie’s sale in South Kensington, England. Wang said Hua had a receipt from the sale. But Wang, who is supposed to authenticate a piece’s value, never checked with Christie’s or asked to see Hua’s sales slip in evaluating the vase, according to his lawyer. Instead, he concluded that the piece was an authentic 18th-century vase, not a modern copy, based on his own art expertise and the word of a consultant provided by Hua, Wang said. In Iowa, the torn Christie’s sticker on the vase’s bottom had an illegible number. If Wang had investigated the sticker on the bottom of the vase — marked “297” under a Christie’s label — he would have figured out the deception immediately. Lot 297 in the February 23, 1989, Christie’s auction in South Kensington was not even a vase: according to a Christie’s spokewoman, it was a 10¼-inch blanc de chine statuette of Guanyin, Buddhism’s goddess of compassion. It had an estimated value of about $100. Vase that drew $1.7m bid also drawing federal scrutiny

The International Cricket Council (ICC) Thursday launched the official event website for the Champions Trophy, which will be held in England and Wales June 6-23.

Tomorrow England meet New Zealand in the second Test at Headingley. The home team will be looking to take a 2-0 series win, while the tourists will be looking to tie the series 1-1. England will settle for a draw and a 1-0 series result, but would prefer to win. Despite winning the first Test, England did several things badly and will be looking to do those things better while simultenously maintaining standards or improving when it comes to the things they did well. The same applies to New Zealand, only they will be looking to make far greater improvements. When you consider the outcome of the last Test, they could conceivably play significantly better and yet still lose if England can improve to the same degree. Set against that is the fact that New Zealand could play exactly the same as in the first Test and England could play worse, in which case we might get a different result. However, the Kiwis won’t want to have to rely on that. Players who are injured will be replaced by different players, but there may also be other changes. Some players are more likely to be dropped than others and that likelihood is often dependent on the quality and form of the players who would most likely replace them. Both teams will look to play well early on and will also be keen to continue playing well should they achieve that. If either side makes a poor start, they will hope that they can come back from that and will endeavour to do so. It might rain a bit.

Manchester United striker Danny Welbeck is determined to improve his goalscoring record next season. The England man, 22, netted just twice but bagged 12 strikes the year before. read more