Out & About

This weekend is your last chance to see the Forever Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The V&A’s John Madejski Garden hosts the videowall installation, which projects graphic animations that are responding to an ever-changing soundtrack.

The installation comes from Universal Everything, a design studio of an ever-growing network of designers, artists, musicians, producers and programmers. Their digital design system will create unique sounds and images every day, forever. Well, until Sunday at least. Who knows what happens to it after that.

Chinese New Year is one of the most important holidays in the Chinese calendar. To celebrate the dawn of the year of the Ox, lots of events are taking place across the UK. On 1st February, there’s a traditional parade in London’s Trafalgar Square. There are also free events in Birmingham’s Chinese Quarter.

While if you’re further afield, there’s an event at Edinburgh’s National Museum of Scotland on 8th February, showcasing traditional Chinese music, dance, calligraphy, art and animation.

With celebrations going on all over the place, we didn’t want to miss out. So we’re offering free UK delivery to all our online customers this week. See our website for details. (Your order won’t be delivered by Ox though, van’s are much quicker.)

There’s bound to be a lot of celebrations across Scotland this weekend to mark Burns Night on 25th January. The event celebrates the birthday of Scottish author and poet, Robert Burns, best known for writing Auld Lang Syne.

A traditional Burns Supper usually consists of cock-a-leekie soup, haggis and Scotch whiskey. This year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, so expect some extra special celebrations. To find out more about the event and the man himself, take a look here.

For many of us, a festival means a muddy weekend of camping and drinking canned cider. However there’s a whole world of weird and wonderful festivals out there. London’s International Mime Festival, for example, runs from 10th-25th January and will showcase the work of Britain’s finest visual theatre artists.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the festival takes place at various venues around the city, from the ICA to the Southbank Centre. The full list of festival participants and venues can be seen here. White gloves and an invisible box are optional.

For those of you planning to sit indoors and moan about the weather this weekend, here’s another idea. Two unusual festivals are taking place and you don’t need sunshine, or a big bank balance, for either of them.

London’s first Ice Sculpting Festival is taking place at the National History Museum from Friday to Sunday. Five teams from around the world are coming to carve their interpretation of the theme, ‘Wildlife in the City’. You can even have a go yourself at a free ice sculpting master class.

Meanwhile in Whittlsea, Peterborough, the Straw Bear Festival sees three days of musical concerts, barn dances and one man dressed up as a straw bear. This weird and wonderful tradition stretches back to 1882 and culminates with the burning of the straw on Sunday.

Not everyone sleeps in on New Year’s Day, recovering from the previous night’s revelry. Oh no, people get up to all sorts of shenanigans. Here are five of our favourite events from around the world that celebrate New Year’s Day.

1. Here in London, the 23rd major street parade attracts thousands of performers and spectators to Big Ben at noon. [Read more…]

Everyone knows Scotland go mad for Hogmanay. In Stonehaven, 16 miles south of Aberdeen, the celebrations are more spectacular than most. There, at the stroke of midnight, 60 locals march through the town swinging fireballs. Take a look at The Stonehaven Fireballs Association. [Read more…]

For most of us Christmas is about eating, drinking and falling asleep in front of the telly. Some brave souls however, reject such sedate activities. Instead choosing to brave the elements and having a nice al fresco dip on Christmas Day.

Every Christmas day since 1864, the Serpentine Swimming Club have braved the icy waters of Hyde Park’s Serpentine lake for an unusual prize. The swimmers race for the Peter Pan Cup (as presented by the author J.M. Barrie in 1904) which is awarded to the first one over the 100 yard mark.

They’re not the only ones either. In Brighton, the members of Brighton’s Swimming Club go for a morning dip in the sea. It’s now turned into a big spectator event, with hundreds of visitors watching from the seafront each year. Maybe they’re just trying to avoid cooking the turkey?

There are plenty more where they come from too. Click here to see if there’s a swim near you.

The panto season is upon us. Oh no it isn’t. Oh yes it is. Anyway, in celebration of this British tradition, the Thomas Vale Pantomime Horse Grand National sees hundreds of half-man-half-horses jumping fences in the charity race of a lifetime.

It takes place on 30th November in Birmingham and the council have transformed the city centre into a racecourse to host the event. The race starts at 3pm in Centenary Square, but arrive early for a good spot. This year, there’s also a children’s fancy dress race for 5-12 year olds. To see photos of the event from previous years, click here, or for more information visit Birmingham City Council’s website.

If you attend this year’s race, why not send us your pictures, videos or stories, straight from the horse’s mouth.