London's one and only cat café

In London's East End is a café that cares for a dozen cats. Customers can come in, eat and play with the cats. It is located on Bethnal Green Road and is called Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium. If you want to go, you must make a reservation in advance as it is a popular place. They have a menu of teas, coffees, other hot drinks plus pastries and light snacks. We ordered bagels and salad.They do offer "high tea" at certain times of the day. We went early in the morning when they first opened. Some of the cats were awake and playful. There are many cat toys, towers and shelves for the cats (to lie on). There is a mandatory cover charge of 6 GBP per person that goes towards the cats' welfare.  

The website is www.ladydinahs.com

Here are a few photos.

Petra (half tabby, half Persian) enjoying the tower by the front window.

Donnie in the front window.

Alice in the downstairs area.

Carbonelle lying on the menu.

        Mue on a shelf high up on the wall

My favorite picture of Petra.

Biscuit - Just chilling...

We both ordered speciality drinks, named after some of the cats. I ordered the "Donnie", a salty caramel chai. My husband ordered the "Carbonelle", a raspberry flavored dark hot chocolate.

They were very creative with the design on the foam on top.

I really recommend this café, especially if you are a cat lover.

Street art and graffiti in London's East End

DWe took a wonderful tour on street art and graffiti in London's East End. It was through Free Tours on Foot. You pay what you want for the tour at the end. Our guide Greg was very knowledgeable about this subject as he is an artist and knows many of the artists whose work is plastered all over the Eaśt End.

CAVEAT - Due to the fleeting nature of this kind of art, there are no guarantees that these works of art will still be around when you try to find them.

We started out looking at a "tag" on a garbage can. A tag is the artist's signature on a piece of art. It can be the artist's initials or some pseudonym. The tag is extremely important as an identifier of the artist so the general public can find other works by the same artist and follow the artist through various forms of social media.

We had an interesting discussion on the difference between street art and graffiti. The main determiner is whether the piece of art was made with permission (a commissioned work) or whether the art was made without permission (illegally) on a surface. Street art is made with permission, whereas graffiti is not. It is impossible to tell just by looking at the art if it was made legally or illegally. We saw both kinds of art on our tour. If I remember which art below is which kind I will make a note of it.

First on our stop was graffiti on a wall next to Joe's Kids store on Fashion Street off of Brick Lane.

The Australian "Jimmy C" is the artist. He grew up in Australia and ran away from home at an early age, after his dad died. For many years he was homeless. While on the street he started painting graffiti. Eventually he was able to work and earn enough money to put himself through university to study art. He was fascinated by the French impressionists. You can see their influence on his style in the graffiti we saw. It was described as an aerosol pointillist style. He likes to let the spray paint drip to imitate the impressionists. For more information on this artist (James Cochran), go to www.jimmyc.com

Next farther down Fashion Street was a different style. I believe it was street art (a commissioned work). The style is cubism (our guide said think Picasso) and the artist is an Italian named "Hunto".

The next 3 were in an alley off of Brick Lane where Saffrons restaurant is on the corner. Go towards Christ Church Spitalfields. At the end of the alley were 3 contrasting pieces by 3 different artists. All of the works are graffiti. "Star" (or "rats") was painted in "helium style" to look like helium balloons. This is by the artist Fanakapan.

The artist Tizer, born in Nebraska and raised in London, painted the man below with glasses on the garage door of a rich family's home. It was graffiti, therefore painted without permission. Luckily the family rather liked the graffiti so it has not been painted over.

Likewise Mr. Cenz painted graffiti on this same rich family's gate, right next to Tizer's graffiti. Again lucky for Mr. C that they liked his work too. For more on him go to www.mrcenz.com.

On Hansbury Street on a wall there is a work by Elian Chali and Alexis Diaz. It is called "Eye of the heart". Chali painted the geometrical shapes with paint rollers. Diaz painted the heart with fine brushes. 

Diaz is from Puerto Rico. 

For more info on these artists I am sure you can look them up on the Internet.

Down Hansbury Street a little farther you will see a giant bird on the side of a building. It was painted by Roa from Ghent, Brussels. The bird started out as a heron, but the Bangladeshi people in the neighborhood asked him to change it to a crane, a good luck symbol for them. This was an ambitious work that required a cherry picker to get up that high. The other piece of art next to it (upside down man) is by another artist.

The Nomadic Community Gardens in Allen Gardens is the site for more graffiti. It is located around Buxton and Code Streets, near train tracks that were part of the former Shoreditch Station. On a wall in the community gardens is graffiti by 9 different artists. This type of incongruous styles found all together is typical of a situation where artists are purposefully painting over other artists' works so their art can be seen. These are "wall burners". A cherry picker was also used for this work.

The Nomadic Community Gardens is an interesting all-volunteer project of creating gardens for the community so people can grow their own food. This is in an area where major building development projects are slated in 2 years. The gardens are in a way a statement to the developers that productive use can be made of this land without building skyscrapers there. This is most likely a temporary garden and will not influence decision makers to change their minds about developing this land.

Near the gardens is an area at the end of Code Street, near Brick and Sclater Streets. On the wall by the train tracks is an amazing piece of art in tribute to the British fantasy writer Terry Prachett. This was created by Jim Vision and "Dr. Zadok". It shows Terry Pratchett's head and various wizards from his Discworld books. The art was too big for me to photograph in full. Here are some portions of it. This art was very well received, thus it should be up for a while.

R

Around the corner from the Terry Pratchett tribute are 2 more interesting works. One was described as the "liquid light geisha" by our guide. The rainy atmosphere with street lights at night makes this "liquid light". This work is by Dan Kitchener.

The endangered bird on the wall is by Louis Michel aka "Masai". He is pointing out that we should be more aware of endangered species. He made a reference on his graffiti to some nature society that promotes saving birds and they were at first not happy that he did so. However after seeing this graffiti bird the society embraced Masai's work and commissioned him to paint other endangered birds.

Finally one of the most famous graffiti artists in London is called "Banksy". He has been commissioned by some for their own works of art. They are worth millions of GBP. He generally is known as a stencil artist. This example of a car had one of his images on the passenger's window. Our guide mentioned something about ghost rider. The image resembled perhaps former prime minister Tony Blair. The window was "removed" due to objections or maybe stolen. In any case the window has cardboard in it now. So we actually did not see a Banksy work. This car is located off of Brick Lane, near Truman Brewery and the food trucks in the courtyard. 

A propos Banksy, there was a long standing dispute between him and another street artist "Robbo". Banksy met Robbo and Robbo did not appreciate that Banksy had not heard of him and his art. After a slap in the face of Banksy by Robbo, the war was on. They went back and forth painting over and/or defacing each other's graffiti. One of the locations was by Regents Canal on Camden Rd. in Camden Town. I won't go into all the details, but you can get the gist of it on www.twistedsifter.com

Robbo died about 1 year ago after being in a medically induced coma for 3 years. He had fallen and hit his head. After Robbo's death Banksy decided to restore some of Robbo's art and pay tribute to "King Robbo" as a legitimate street artist.

ps. Most of these artists can be found on the Internet if you search for them.

Many of the graffiti artists have been "discovered" by those with money, thanks to their art being seen on the internet or seen on the streets. As a result, commissions have been offered to many of these graffiti artists for publications or personal art collections. This of course helps out the artist financially. However other graffiti artists have thought that those accepting commissions have "sold out", especially those who only work on commission and have abandoned street graffiti. Our guide mentioned this.

The art of doing graffiti on the streets is a subtle one, according to our guide. It is illegal activity and you can be fined and/or put in jail. The key to doing it well is to look like you have been hired to paint at that site. This means dressing like a painter, doing it during daylight, using suitable equipment for the job (cherry picker, cones to block off streets etc). This makes you look "official" and no one will suspect that you are doing it illegally.

Graffiti can be up for a short period of time or for a long period. You never know. Other graffiti artists can easily paint over your work if they like that spot.  It can be painted over by the owner of the property if they do not like it.

Despite this "fleeting" nature of art, it manages to inspire and spark the imaginations of viewers and artists. 

The East End of London is a prime spot for finding graffiti and street art, but not the only location in London. If you want to check it out, there is a large concentration of graffiti and street art in a small area in the east end.

 

Globe Theater in London

I highly recommend a visit to the Globe Theater in London. We just came back from a tour and a play.

Fantastic experience! Here's why.

The tour is a good introduction to the history of the Globe Theater. It lasts around 45 minutes. We went inside the theater during the time the stage crew were setting up for this afternoon's performance.

They were extending the stage in the shape of a cross. You can see that cross in the picture below.

Here is a better view of the extended stage right before the play started.

The current theater is the 3rd reincarnation of the Globe Theater. The 1st theater was up and running in 1599. It thrived for 14 years. Four actors bought shares in the building to get the project off the ground. Shakespeare was one of the four. 

In 1613 the 1st theater burned down due to a special effect of cannon fire during a performance of Henry VIII. Not too smart to try a real cannon in a wooden theater with a thatched roof.

The 2nd Globe Theater was built soon after the fire. This time it had a tiled roof. This theater stayed open until 1642 when the Puritan administration in England closed down all theaters. It was demolished in 1644.

This 3rd Globe Theater was completed in 1997 after 3 1/2 years of construction. It is on a different site from the previous theaters. American actor Sam Wanamaker initiated the project. There was much conjecture on the look of the theater as not much primary source material was found on the 1st and 2nd Globe Theaters. Some ruins of the 2nd theater remain buried underneath a permanent structure and cannot be presently dug up.

The Globe Theater in Shakespeare's day was in direct competition with 2 other nearby playhouses - the Rose and the Swan. A lot more is known about the look of the Rose Theater as they had access to dig around that area. 

The South Bank,where Shakespeare's Globe was located, was a baudy area of London during Shakespeare's time. There were ale houses, inns, brothels, and bull and bear baiting arenas. At the time it was a guy's hangout. It was no doubt that Shakespeare got inspiration for some of his characters from the guys hanging out in these entertainment houses. No wonder the Puritans wanted to close down the area!

The Lords' boxes in the theater were located directly to the left and right of the stage. They were places to be "seen" and not necessarily places to see well (the action of the play). They had the luxury of padded seats, unlike the hard wooden seats of the commoners. Some of the Lords donated their gently used clothing to the actors for their costumes. The wearing of these princely clothes by the actors was not allowed outside the theater upon penalty of arrest. Here is a photo of one of the Lords' boxes, directly to the side of the stage on the first balcony level (behind the column).

In Shakespeare's day it cost 1 penny to stand during the play on the area in front of the stage. You were not allowed to sit down. You could lean on someone or something however. The poorer people chose that option. There were no outhouses around, so you might be standing in dung and urine. Better to stand than sit in it!

Here is a photo of the balcony area of the stage that is used for balcony scenes. 

We attended the Shakespeare play Richard II and this balcony was used in the scene where Richard is speaking with Bolingbroke about Richard's future as king (pretty dismal for Richard at this point).

The performance of Richard II was spectacular. They used limited scenery as was common in Shakespeare's day. The acting was very riveting. The star of the show as Richard II was Charles Edwards (aka Michael Gregson of Downton Abbey). I could not get Gregson out of my head that easily when he was acting. It is the danger of watching a lot of Downton Abbey, I suppose.

Finally here is a photo from outside the current Globe Theater.

I highly recommend a visit to the Globe Theater for the tour, the exhibit (self-guided) and a performance. Make sure to check out the indoor theater at the Globe Theater as well (called the Sam Wanamaker Theater) for tours and shows. I hear that is good too. We did not have time to check it out.