恭喜发财 from London’s Chinatown

…hopefully that title should read Happy New Year in Chinese.  Today is the end of a weeks worth of Chinese New Year celebrations in London’s chinatown.  It all culminated with the big parade and celebrations in Trafalgar Square.  I had hoped to go along, but partly because of a nasty cold and being glued to the Olympics very late last night I didn’t wake up until 2pm today so decided to give it a miss!

But I was there last Sunday when all the festivities kicked off with the Dragon and Lion dances outside all the businesses.  I met up with Rob, my friend from Greece for a photowalk and it was great fun, we basically followed the dancers around Chinatown as they went from restaurant to restaurant performing a traditional ceremony outside each one.

Olympic fever hits London…sort of!

So with the Winter Olympics starting in Vancouver today Olympic fever also arrived in London, well sort of. Yesterday the Mayor of London and the Canadian High Commissioner unveiled this ice statue in Trafalgar Square to mark the 2010 games and during the next sixteen days a big screen will be showing all the Olympic action for the tourists. Today was supposed to be a day of celebrations in the Square, but in reality it was all a bit of a damp squib.

Apart from the ice sculpture and the big screen (showing the Opening Ceremony) the only thing going on in the Square was a very small games tent where people could play winter sports games on an Xbox or Wii console.  Not exactly a packed day.  Given that the annual Canada Day celebration in Trafalgar Square is always a big event, I figured they’d go to similar efforts for the Olympics.  It could have been so much more – throw in some Canadian Mounties, a bit of street hockey, it could have been so much better.  Just hope they put a bit more effort in when it comes to the 2012 celebrations.

Shooting the Winter Olympics

Tonight, or really very very early tomorrow morning the 2010 Winter Olympics will kick off in Vancouver with the Opening Ceremony.  For the next sixteen days the UK and much of the world will become obsessed with sports they haven’t even thought about since the last time this all happened in Italy (me, i’m looking forward to the Ski Cross event). 

But as well as the world class sport on display we’ll also see some fantastic photography, it’ll be everywhere i’m sure.  To get a taster of what you’ll see I would heartily recommend you check out this short video on the New York Times photojournalism blog – Lens.  The video features the photographer Doug Mills who will be at his seventh Winter Olympics as he talks about what its like to work at the games (and it sounds tough!).  Unfortunately I can’t embed the video here (or if you can I can’t work out how!) so head over to the excellent blog here to have a watch.

Billy Bragg at Speakers Corner – the Video

[Vimeo 9306970]

(Video available in HD here)

I mentioned in my last post that while I was listening to Billy Bragg on Sunday in Speakers Corner I shot some video. Well it took over 24 hours to upload and convert on Vimeo, but the video is finally available to watch. I won’t bother trying to explain about the campaign, the video and Bragg himself are much clearer than I probably could be. Anyway enjoy the video and I’d be interested to hear peoples opinions of what’s said.

Billy Bragg at Speakers Corner

Political activist and singer-songwriter Billy Bragg took his campaign against bankers bonuses to Speakers Corner this weekend. To protest the payment of big bonuses by the Royal Bank of Scotland, which was bailed out by the government, Bragg is refusing to pay his taxes.  Speaking at Speakers Corner for the second week in a row Bragg claimed he wouldn’t pay his taxes until the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alastair Darling vetoed the RBS bonuses as he has the power to do.

Using his speech at the Corner (and via his 20,000 strong facebook group) Bragg urged others to join his campaign by writing to the Chancellor and demanding he act against the RBS bankers.  While he’s been in Hyde Park for the last two weeks Bragg has said he plans to take his campaign around the country – starting in Edinburgh outside the RBS headquarters.

I did manage to shoot some video while Billy was speaking but it’s taking its time to upload, so i’ll post that later (probably tomorrow).  But if you want more information you head over to either the facebook group or the special website for the campaign. Both addresses are below -

http://www.nobonus4rbs.co.uk/

No Bonus 4 RBS Facebook Group