I based my expedition yesterday on this helpful list in Time Out of London’s best charity shops. Some of them are Mary Portas approved, since she’s got that new show about charity shopping, which you might think is helpful, but I found REALLY ANNOYING, because I turned on my TV this morning and found out that her and a couple of stylists had gone and raided the exact shops I went to, probably moments before I had, and grabbed the best stuff to showcase on This Morning.

Anyway… I went to the Red Cross shop in Victoria, which was nice, but I didn’t find anything. I also went to the Trinity Hospice in Kensington, and was significantly underwhelmed, although that is probably for the reasons above, since This Morning’s styllists seemed to have no trouble finding stuff there.

The best of the bunch was Crusaid in Pimlico (it’s Mary Portas approved!), which I discovered is where Urban Outfitters donate all their unsold stock to. So basically, there’s rails and rails of brand new Urban Outfitters clothes for a fiver! I got an awesome dress, and a top that I really should have tried on before purchasing, but never mind, it’s for charity.

I’m going to try out the others later in the week and I’ll report back.

Friday: Get your ass down to the Big Chill Bar off Brick Lane to see Stringer Bell from the Wire DJing. That’s not a joke. He’s an actual DJ too, not a DJ like Alexa Chung is a DJ, and he’ll be playing hip hop and soul FOR FREE.

Saturday: Go to Beat It at The Hideaway on Junction Road cos it’s awesome, it has a pretty little beer garden, and because I said so. Not just me though, this place is now endorsed by never-heard-of-her-before-today-singing-sensation Zarif, in this Londonist interview. And they’re involved in the Holloway Arts Festival in some way that’s not completely clear to me yet, which I’ll be blogging about at some point.

Sunday: Fix your hangover at the Summer Food Market at the Southbank Centre. The website says this:

A programme of free access demos, tastings and workshops runs each day; a special feature are workshops demonstrating the use of Japanese condiments, courtesy of Clearspring.

Saturday: More Shakespeare! God I’m predictable. The Pantaloons are performing Romeo and Juliet at The Scoop, the open-air amphitheatre on the Southbank (by City Hall, not far from The Globe in fact). It’s on at 2pm and 6pm on Saturday and Sunday, and it will be lovely because the weather’s going to be gorgeous.

Sunday: The weather’s going to be gorgeous again, so why not go for a Sunday Stroll with the charming people behind the London Friday Night Skate. It is in fact rollerskating, not strolling, if you’re unfamiliar with it. Meet at 2pm in the south east corner of Hyde Park.

Have fun!

I saw Peer Gynt at the Barbican as part of A Night Less Ordinary, an Arts Council funded project that provides free theatre tickets to people under 26. So it couldn’t really fail to be worth the ticket price.

But I can’t quite agree with the girl next to me who stood up at the end of the performance and announced, ‘THAT was the BEST thing I have EVER SEEN’, which is almost always going to be hyperbole and so I don’t think really even counts as having an opinion on a piece of theatre.

Overall, I thought it was inventively and cleverly staged, using bold sweeps of fantasy and unreality to skim over the most awkward parts of the play, always circling just beyond lucidity. It was over the top, with a tendency to take things too far, but then so’s Peer.

There were bits of it that I found mesmerising, particularly the performance of Keith Fleming as young Peer. I’m not sure if this is a compliment, but his performance as a delusional, self-destricutive alcoholic was so vivid that I could swear that at times I could smell his sour breath. However, I felt that Peer’s sheer insistance on fantasy should have a sort of charm, which is what continually attracts his mother and Solveig, and I didn’t feel that from Fleming.

The performance was characterised by it’s energy; it’s an explosion of a play and I hate to say it but I felt it could use just a bit of reigning in. But it was great for the price and for pure spectacle it’s definitely worth seeing. If you have a choice between getting free tickets for this or seeing the new Terminator film for £10 a pop, there’s a lot more going for this.

Here’s a list of places you can still see it:

Dundee Rep

His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen

Eden Court, Inverness

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Theatre Royal, Glasgow

Yes, the contest is every bit as rhinestone, glitter and sequin filled as you would imagine, and Jamie J. Johnson captures this perfectly, walking a fine line between satire and sincerity. There are several moments of sheer brilliance in the editing- such as the cut from an awkward, pubescent, Belgian drummer to a girl in the crowd, near tears with excitement and gushing hormones, the light glinting of her braces.

But there is a whole other side to the film, which is a documentary about life as a teenager as much as it is about the contest, and how little the experience differs from country to country, despite the massive contrast in the stars’ upbringing.

The film explores sexuality, responsibility, and family relationships in an incredibly honest way, showing the children at their most eloquent and their most vulnerable. It is among the most accurate portrayals of adolescence I have ever seen commited to film (along with Little Miss Sunshine, Napolean Dynamite, My So-Called Life and The Inbetweeners) despite the story being so distant from my own teenage experiences.

Visit the website to find out where you can see it: Sounds Like Teen Spirit

Chicken at Mudchute Farm

Obviously the best thing to do with a sunny bank holiday is to go to the beach, there’s no debate there.

But if you can’t even afford train fare to get you there, here’s a couple of options for places to hang out a little closer to home (well, MY home in Tower Hamlets).

Number one, Mudchute City Farm. It’s supposed to be the biggest farm in London, but it’s still pretty small. But that’s cool, because they have a lot of miniature sized animals to go with it, like these teeny tiny birds, and the cutest ever pygmy goat:

Plus, it’s right next to Asda if you want a budget picnic.

Second, I checked out St Dunstans-in-the-East, which I’d heard a lot about but never been to. It’s an old church that got bombed and damaged so many times they gave up rebuilding it and made it a garden (or someting like that). It’s surprisingly relaxing, almost meditative, as somehow all the plantlife blocks out the noise of a realy busy road that runs just by it, so you can only hear the soft trickle of the central water feature. Here are a few more of my rubbish photos:

The East End Film festival has been running since 2001, and celebrates the talent of film makers in Tower Hamlets. Last night was unfortunately (for you, not me) the closing gala, although the website promises that “EEFF is now a year round concern, with regular short film screenings and events, supporting new and established filmmakers and contributing to East London’s profile as the beating heart of creative London.”

I can’t tell you anything about most of the festival, but the closing gala was fabulous! It involved free wine (which you know I’m a fan of), a short presentation about the festival, and the presentation of the awards, a film premiere, a short but memorable trip on a routemaster bus through streets it wasn’t designed for, an afterparty- which involved more free booze (yay!)- and an adolescent belgian band.

I would absolutely encourage people to get involved if, like me, you had no idea there was so much talent on your doorstep. The premiere was for a film called ‘Sounds Like Teen Spirit’, directed by Jamie J. Johnson, that was so endearing, charming and FUNNY that it deserves it’s own post as soon as I get around to writing one.

East End Film Festival on Facebook

And everyone knows about Pirate Bay, and even if you care about dumb copymusic ownership laws, there’s always Spotify.

But it’s still nice when an artist gives away their stuff for free. Especially when it’s FUCKING AWESOME. So download the new Freeland track, Under Control, here.

This Sunday, at the Whitechapel Gallery, from 1pm, you’ll be able to get free ice cream as part of some sort of art project.

Now, I don’t really understand the aristic value of this project, although to be fair all I know about it is the free ice cream bit, but that’s enough to get me down there.

I’m not joking, I really don’t understand what this is about, so I’m just going to copy and paste from the website:

“To mark the end of this year’s Street project, Fleet Ice Cream Orchestra perform outside the Street Headquaters on Toynbee Street. Six vans from Honours Ice Cream play a specially created six part composition written by Kelvin Pawsey for the ice cream van horn.

Free ice cream will be served before and after the performance at The Shop as part of Minerva Cuevas’ S·COOP commission (while stocks last).”

A couple of London restaurants are letting ‘George’s and ‘Georgina’s (although neither of them mention Georgias?) eat for free today!

One in The Park Terrace in Kensington, which is offering a free two course lunch or dinner, and the other is the St Pancaras Grand, where you can get whatever you want!

So if you’re a George  or Georgina- of if, like me, you have a friend called George you can convince to go halves- take your pick!