Friday Round-up

Street Piano as part of the City of London Festival

The City of London Festival is a three-week long annual event which brings a variety of arts and art forms to the City residents and workers and I know from last year’s just how popular it was in my office with mainstream arts mixing with the decidedly unconventional, but highly entertaining.

The kick-off today is marked by a procession from the Guidhall at 12.30 finishing at St Pauls at 1.30 and then at 2.30 they’ll be a Street Piano event in Paternoster Square by St Pauls. The pianos will be around until July 13th so you’ve got plenty of time to find one and give it a go.

As one festival starts, so another finishes with it being the last day of the Spitalfields Summer 09 Music Festival and your last chance to catch the free lunchtime concert with the closing event being tonight’s concert by the Early Opera Company in Christ Church Spitalfields with early Italian compositions.

London Playboy Party

On my travels yesterday I bumped into two lovely, if decidedly cold, young ladies at Liverpool Street Station trying to tempt me into going to the London Playboy Party tonight at the Cafe de Paris. I’m otherwise engaged this evening so didn’t take them up on their offer though if you do go perhaps they’ll be able to afford to buy some of their lovely models some clothes…

More “blarney” than “stone”

Yes, it’s that day of the year again when everyone can pretend to be “Oirish” for the day and drink copious amounts of the kind of stuff that they’d normally avoid in the kind of places they wouldn’t normally go near if they were of a sober disposition. Being one-eighth Irish on my Father’s side obviously makes me an expert on such matters, or at least as much of an expert as most people you’re likely to meet in an “Oirish” pub today so I’ve brought you a couple of suggestions on places to spend your evening! With so many green-adorned Londoners around the place your chances of an authentic Irish St Patrick’s day are pretty minimal so it’s probably best to surrender to the inevitable from the start and just set out to have an “Irish-themed” evening as the chances are that even your local curry house will be pushing the Guiness this evening.

Anyway, down to the nitty-gritty. My nearest Irish pub is O’Neill’s on London Wall and they will be putting on the ‘craic’ today from 11am to 11pm
O’Neill’s, 64 London Wall
http://www.oneills.co.uk/oneillslondonwall/offer/celebratestpatricksdaywithus/

Moving further afield there’s Filthy McNasty’s whisky bar up near Angel, which has been kindly described as ‘rowdy’ and ‘no-frills’, making it an ideal location for the evening’s festivities.
Filthy McNasty’s, 68 Amwell Street
http://www.filthymacnastys.com/

If you fancy heading up to the West End then to my mind the obvious place to go is Waxy O’Connor’s in Rupert Street by Piccadilly Circus where there’ll be live music and more but I’d recommend getting there early as it’s guaranteed to be packed.
Waxy O’Connor’s
http://www.waxyoconnors.co.uk/london/index.asp

Have a great evening, whatever you end up doing, but in the meantime you might want to read up on the controversy surrounding the use of the word ‘craic’ so you’ve got something “Oirish” to talk about in the pub tonight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craic