Big Ben, London, UK

I’ve said before I like making quizzes on Squidoo so it’s no surprise that I’ve just done another one – How Well Do You Know London?

Like the other quizzes I’ve done, this one supports my existing pages on London. As I’ve done several of these, I hope that it will increase traffic to them.

One thing I’ve not done yet is to link to the quiz from my other London pages and that’s just because I’m away from home at the moment. I shall do it as soon as possible, though, so that people who are interested in reading about London are sent to the quiz.

I did list my other quizzes on the new one and they have all had increased visitor numbers over the last week so it shows Squidoo pages do send people from one lens to another. I never doubted this, actually!

For this week’s Squidoo Rocket Moms lens we have to write about a place we’ve visited.

This is so hard. My thoughts are whirling. Should I write about St Maartens, a Caribbean island I visited briefly but loved?

Maybe I should write something about Paris, France, a city I’ve often visited and one of my favourite places. I could write about the small French fishing town of Honfleur in Normandy, another place I’ve visited several times because it’s a favourite.

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Tower of London

I was so excited this morning after reading an email telling me that my lens about the Tower of London had won the very first Barker’s Best award from the Carnival of the Squid.

I’ve never had a proper training in either writing or making web pages so I always have a bit of an inferiority complex about what I do. It doesn’t matter that I used to be commissioned regularly to write for UK antiques magazines or that I was also given a commission by a major UK publisher, who contacted me out of the blue, to write a book about the UK antiques trade. I stopped doing his because of ill health and a lack of confidence that I could always meet deadlines.

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A British Milk Chocolate Bar

Because of the growing epidemic of obesity in the UK, today a doctor in Scotland has called for the British Government to put a tax on chocolate. Dr David Walker argues that the tax would at least indicate to consumers that chocolate is an unhealthy food.

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The Quilt Museum and Gallery opened on 7th June, 2008, in the medieval St Anthony’s Hall, adding another unique attraction to York’s list of museums and collections.

The Quilt Museum is now the headquarters of The Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles and its world-famous Heritage Collection of 600 quilts which includes the earliest known signed and dated patchwork, from 1718. There is also quilted clothing, tools and equipment on display.

Additionally, special exhibitions of textiles from home and abroad will be shown in the museum.

When it opened, Janice Gunner, former President of The Quilters Guild, said: “We are all thrilled that the move into our new headquarters is about to become a reality, and with it the opportunity to share with the wider world the traditions and aspirations of this wonderful craft. St Anthony’s is a fabulous location, rich in history: a wholly fitting home for our own Collection, and a focus for the exciting and innovative work going on within contemporary quiltmaking today.”

The first exhibition of 2009 at the Museum started on January 20th and continues through to April 18th. It celebrates the use of cloth through the Quilter’s Guild Heritage collection in ‘Warp, Weft and the Printer’s Block’, and through the work of contemporary textile artist Cefyn Burgess in a Ruthin Crafts Centre Touring Exhibition entitled ‘Migration’.

Find out more about the historic city of York.

Named after their American bald Eagle, Liberty’s Raptor and Reptile Centre is located near Ringwood, in Hampshire, UK. As it’s located on the edge of the New Forest National Park, it makes a great place to visit while you are also visiting the Park.

It has a large collection of birds of prey like eagles, owls and vultures as well as reptiles – snakes, tortoises and lizards. There are displays of the raptors flying and you can even have the experience of flying these beautiful birds yourself with the centre’s Hunting Day Flying Experiences as long as you are over 16 years of age.

Bearded Dragon, Aquarium Animal Photographic Print
Buy at AllPosters.com

The raptors include African Hooded Vulture, Bateleur Eagle also from Africa, Common Kestrel, Crested Caracara from South America, Great Gray Owl, Mackinders Eagle Owl from Africa, Rock Eagle Owl from India and Pakistan, Siberian Eagle Owl, Snowy Owl from the Arctic tundra, Southern White Faced Owl from Africa, Spectacled Owl from South and Central America, Turkey Vulture from North and South America, and the Western Screech Owl from North and Central America.

Reptiles include Bearded Dragons from Australasia, Common Green Iguanas from Central and South America, Giant Tortoise from the Galapagos, Green Water Dragons from Southeast Asia, and Leopard Geckos from Pakistan, East and Southwest Asia.

The centre is open from March to October.

The Café Royal in Central London’s Regent Street, is closing after 143 years and its contents are all being auctioned by Bonhams on January 20. Its closure is caused not by the recession but by the redevelopment of that part of Regent Street.

For most of its life, it’s been at the heart of London’s high society. Celebrities numbered among it clientele are as diverse as Oscar Wilde, Princess Diana, Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Noel Coward, Elizabeth Taylor and Mick Jagger.

Charlie Thomas, Head of Bonhams Knightsbridge Furniture, says “…Bonhams is delighted to be selling the contents of the Café Royal. Bidders will have the opportunity to acquire a small piece of this iconic London institution”.

Everything must be sold so auction lots are as varied as magnificent Venetian chandeliers, furniture, brandy casks, cigar humidors, paintings, mirrors, photographs and even a full sized boxing ring.

Because everything must go, it’s all being sold without reserve. The good news is that some things have relatively affordable estimates. “A large collection of black and white photographic reproductions depicting celebrities including John Mills, Noel Coward, Gertrude Laurence, Lord Balfour and Princess Marie Louise,all mounted, glazed and framed” have an estimate of £100 to £150(approx $150 to $220). In contrast, “A pair of early 20th century Venetian clear glass twelve-light chandeliers” have an estimate of £3000 to £5000 ($4500 to $7500).

Even some of the furniture has reasonable estimates. “An 18th century Dutch mahogany tripod table” is estimated between £200 to £300 (approx $300 to $450).

It will be interesting to see, in these straitened times, if lots reach their reserve or the magic of the Café Royal name propels prices upwards in spite of the recession.

What will happen to the UK antiques trade in these straitened times? It has been struggling since 9/11 when many Americans stopped travelling abroad. This situation continued with the fall of the dollar against the British Pound which made buying here in Britain too expensive for most Americans.

What must be understood is that American dealers, coming here and filling containers to sell in the USA, has been one of the driving forces of the UK’s antiques trade. When they stopped coming, so trade became more difficult. Over the last 7 years, antiques fairs (shows) have gone out of business or cut back on the number of events each year. In the middle and top of the market, dealers have cut back on the number of fairs they were willing to do. Just covering the stall (booth) rents and other costs involved has become harder. Making a reasonable profit for the risk and time has become something of a miracle.

Meanwhile, stores and antiques centres have closed and many older dealers have retired.

Tastes have changed. Now brown furniture is hard to sell for a decent price. Many other antiques are no longer particularly fashionable either. Over the last 10 years, here in the UK, we have seen minimalism become fashionable in home decorating and it’s a style that doesn’t suit many antiques. Of course, Art Deco and other modern items do fit in with this kind of decor and prices have risen in some areas.

Now the recession has started to bite. Banks are unwilling to allow small businesses, like antique dealers, to have overdrafts. Without this facility, dealers can’t buy fresh stock so their stock doesn’t change. If they do fairs, they are taking much the same things to fair after fair and regular visitors have seen it all before and don’t buy it. Prices for many antiques are low in the auction rooms too so offloading ‘tired’ stock there won’t raise much.

It’s not all doom and gloom for everyone. Some dealers have transferred their businesses to eBay and their own independent websites. They have adapted their stock and prices to the new conditions and so can make a living and, in some cases, a good profit.

The very top dealers, with good client lists and contacts among the richest collectors, can still sell profitably but these don’t generally have the trickle down effect on the rest of the trade that can come from a healthy middle market in antiques.

When the kind of dealers who do the Olympia Fine Art & Antiques Fair, Penman Fairs and other good multi-day fairs sell well, they then go out and look for new stock. They buy from smaller fairs, dealers and antiques centres. In turn, these dealers need to restock and start visiting the one day fairs, car boot sales and part time dealers. This is the trickle down effect.

The other factor against the antiques trade is the fall in the housing market. Whenever this has happened before, the sales of antiques has fallen. If people aren’t moving house, they don’t buy much furniture or other objects.

Is there any hope? I don’t know. The most enterprising dealers will survive the recession with their businesses intact but probably not without changes. It will be interesting to see how those dealers alter their buying and selling habits to run successful businesses.

Over the years, the Tate Gallery’s Turner Prize entrants and winners have attracted public derision and disbelief. Each year, people assured each other they could have done better art than that on show at the Tate for the competition.

Trevor Prideaux, organiser of the Turnip Prize, started the annual competition when Tracey Emin’s Unmade Bed won the Turner Prize in 1999. You can see his point – most of us have done similar works of art – every morning in fact. Of course, we don’t think about the meaning of our unmade beds and explain it to art experts so they could write learned pieces explaining it to the rest of us and telling us why an unmade bed is such great art.

Don’t think the Turnip Prize doesn’t have strict criteria for entry. There have been disqualifications for works that aren’t of the required standard. Some of them were too good and too much effort had been put in to producing them.

When the competition was announced in 1999, it was plainly stated, “You can enter anything you like, but it must be rubbish,” so people who produce work that is too good only have themselves to blame when it’s disqualified. One year, the most famous piece ever to be disqualified might or might not have been by famous graffitti artist Banksy. It was a stencil of the Mona Lisa holding a rocket launcher firing a turnip. It wasn’t eligible for the competition because obviously too much effort and thought had gone into its production.

The prize has just been award for 2008 and it went to 69 year old Ivor Prance with his Fleeced and consisted of a piece of sheep’s wool which he picked off some barbed wire near his home. He said, “The work took no time at all to create.” He won the coveted trophy, a turnip stuck on a 6 inch nail.

The competition takes place each year at the New Inn, in the village of Wedmore, Somerset (south west England). If you want to enter, then it will have to be November 2009. Don’t spend time thinking about your entry or making it because, if you do, it will probably be disqualified. See the rules on The Turnip Prize.

Other winning entries:

1999 – Alfred The Grate (two burned rolls on a fire grate)

2000 – Minstrel Cycle (a bicyclemade from sweets, cocktail sticks and Tampons)

2001 and 2002 the competition was cancelled.

2003 – Take a Leaf out of my Chook (A raw chicken stuffed with leaves)

2004 – Jellied Deal, A wobbly jelly with submerged playing cards.

2005 – Birds Flew (An empty birds’ nest with a box of flu remedy)

2006 – Torn Beef (empty corned beef can)

2007 – Tea P (Used tea bags in the shape of a P)

Almost all children in the UK know this rhyme. It commemorates the plot by Guy Fawkes and other plotters to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

In 1605 Fawkes and the others planted barrels of gunpowder in the cellars beneath Parliament. The aim was to assassinate the king, James I, who was due to visit the building for the State Opening, as well as the aristocracy.

Fawkes and the other plotters were Catholic and this was a period when Roman Catholicism was being suppressed in favour of Protestantism. They hoped the assassination would provoke a Catholic uprising.

Unfortunately for them, the authorities were tipped off about the plan and, on the 5th November, the day of the State Opening, a search revealed Guy Fawkes in the cellars with 20 barrels of gunpowder and the means to detonate them. He was arrested along with other plotters. Fawkes was tortured in the Tower of London then put on trial. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered – this meant he would have been hanged but cut down before he died, then his body would be cut open and his internal organs taken out and burned in front of him, then he would be cut into quarters. He was lucky, though, before he could be partly hanged, he jumped from the platform of the gallows and broke his neck and died. Some of the other plotters weren’t so lucky and the full sentence was carried out.

Now we celebrate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot each year on the 5th November by lighting bonfires and letting off fireworks. When I was a child, we used to make a ‘Guy’, an effigy of Guy Fawkes, then sit in the street with our guy in an old pushchair or homemade go-kart. As people went by we’d say “Penny for the guy” and passersby would give us money. Of course, in these less innocent times, that custom has died out. Even so, an effigy is still burnt on the bonfire.