OK so once again i’m apologising for being a bad blogger, it’s been months since my last post. I’ve been away for a few reasons, partly for the election (I was helping out on a couple of campaigns) and also for work.

But I’m back in London now and I’m so glad to be back! Hopefully now that I’m back I can start being a better blogger and get back to taking a pictures.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures I took this morning at Speakers Corner. Another couple of new faces including the guy with the saxaphone who was rapping using random words from the crowd, who was perhaps one of the most entertaining people I’ve seen at the corner.

So this past Sunday (28th March) with my family down in London to celebrate my graduation we headed to Hyde Park for a listen to the crazies  Big turn out this week with a couple of new speakers (at least for me) who were both drawing big crowds.

In a way these guys were sort of polar opposites.  One an American Christian Evangelist was extolling the views of the Bible, while criticising Islam.  He was particularly focused on the Qu’ran and spent much of his time in arguments with a group of young Muslims who disagreed with his interpretation of their religion.

The other was a young (for Speakers Corner anyway) British Muslim who was discussing Sharia Law, punishment and forgiveness.  Like the first speaker he also spent much of his time talking about other faiths and was particularly critical of Christianity.  Another paralell was that he also seemed to spend most of his time in an argument with a group of Christians.  Just another day at Speakers Corner!

I haven’t been the most active blogger, or photographer lately, but hopefully with the weather starting to look at bit better and the election campaign around the corner, there should be plenty more posts and photos coming in the next few weeks.

Yesterday one of Europe’s most controversial politicians, Geert Wilders, visited the House of Lords to show his anti-Islamic film, at the invitation of Lord Pearson and Baroness Cox (both of whom should frankly be ashamed).  Wilders, who leads the Dutch Freedom Party and who has previously been banned from entering the UK, has called for the banning of the Koran and claims that Islam is a fascist religion.  Not surprisingly his visit wasn’t universally welcomed!

As well as being widely condemned for the visit, Wilders was met in London by about 200 protesters from Unite Against Fascism who kept up a vocal protest for most of the day opposite the House of Lords.  One group who did welcome the visit however was the nasty group called the English Defence League – a group even more despicable than the BNP.  The EDL planned to march past Parliament in support of Wilders’ visit.  I popped out from work during my lunch to take some pictures but there was no sign of the EDL just the UAF.

The Guardian have got a video of the protest (watch it here) which focuses on the English Defence League which I would highly recommend as it shows the EDL for the racist bunch of thugs that they truly are.  After watching the video what really intrigued me was one of the EDL idiots talking about defending British Christian values.  I would be willing to bet a lot of money that no one in the Church of England would accept these views as reflective of their religion and would probably be appalled at the suggestion.  I’d be interested to find out as well if any of these guys who claim to be defending Christian values actually bother to go to Church.  My guess would be no, because in reality the EDL is not about religion but simply about intolerance, racism and downright hatred of something different.

Of the two groups protesting in London yesterday only one truly reflects British values, and that was certainly not the EDL.  Unite Against Fascism demonstrated a belief in tolerance, multi-culturalism and decency and I was proud to see them standing against the repellent views of the EDL.

…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.

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.

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.

(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.

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

Now this isn’t a food blog but on this one occasion I’m going to make an exception because I have to tell you about Pierre Herme who has just opened in London.  My brother (he-eats.com) has been making Macarons for a year or so now and they’re fantastic.  The recipe he’s been using is from a French patissier called Pierre Herme who is famous the world over for his macarons.

Well until recently Pierre Herme has only had shops in Paris and Tokyo so if you live in London you haven’t been able to try them.  All i’ve ever heard about them is just how fantastic they are, how out of the world they are!  Apparently some people have been known to travel to Paris for the day just for his macarons.

Well fantastic news for macaron lovers everywhere (or in London at least) as of today Pierre Herme has a small boutique selling his macarons in Selfridges on Oxford Street!!  Luckily I had today off work, so this morning I headed to Selfridges to see if they live up to the hype.  And they do!  Without question these are some of the nicest things I have ever eaten.  The flavours are so intense, its so hard to eat just one.

Now, they’re not exactly cheap, but for the quality you get I think they’re well worth it.  They’re priced by weight at around £80 per kilo, and that works out at around £2 per macaron, so they’re standard box of seven comes in at £14.  Might sound like a lot, but once you’ve tried them you realise just how good they are and that they’re worth every penny.

I bought seven different flavours today – Chuao (dark chocolate and blackcurrant), Mogador (passion fruit and milk chocolate), Coing & Rose (quince and rose), Infiniment Vanille (vanilla from Tahiti, Madagascar and Mexico), Infiniment Caramel (salted caramel), the Pistachio and the Chocolate.

If you’re in the UK you might want to check out tomorrow’s Guardian as I think they’re running a piece on Pierre Herme’s London opening tomorrow.  A journalist was interviewing customers (including me!) and said it would probably run tomorrow.

So my neon project is coming on nicely, this weekend I went to a great exhibition put together by one of the UK’s most prominent neon sign makers Chris Bracey in Carnaby Street.  They had some great signs, some of the most creative i’ve seen.  I’ve decided to make this into a long-term project, documenting neon signs from around the city.

So to show off the project i’ve decided to set up a new blog called “A Neon City”.  I’ll show some of the neon stuff here, and will continue to post my other stuff, but if you want to follow the neon stuff head over to aneoncity.tumblr.com where you can see it all