Cineroleum, Kensington Palace, Loud Tate, Hungamunga and a beach at Whitechapel

Maybe it’s because I had a week off last week or maybe it’s just that everyone feels the August weather is betraying us, but it has been a long week. This morning I got into the office at 8:50 and no one was in. After a thoughts of apocalypse and ‘the end is nigh’ had passed I checked my calendar to find that, yes, indeed, it is still Friday and not the weekend yet. See, our office is usually, without fail, a hub of coffee-making, cereal-eating and thinking-about-working activity by at the latest 8:45 every weekday.


At the end of a long week, nothings better than a productive weekend. Here are some things going on this weekend...

The obsession of pop-up shop culture is still going strong. If you throw ‘pop-up’ in with the word ‘derelict’, you get a definite East Central kind of feel out of this one. That’s where you’ll find me on this, the opening night of Cineroleum. It’s a hand-built pop-up cinema on Clerkenwell Road; the brainchild of a group of local young artists and architects, the cinema is showing a choice of wonderfully selected films. Tonight is Rebel Without a Cause, unfortunately but not surprisingly sold out, there are more on over the rest of the weekend (also sold out) and then a combination of The Long Goodbye, Night of the Living Dead and The Third Man make up some of the rest of the showings over the next three weeks. I love this page of their website showing the construction of the petrol station turned cinema. Tickets are only a fiver, click here for more info.

Kensington Palace this evening anyone? The much celebrated and well received Enchanted Forest Exhibition is holding a bit of do this evening. It finishes at 10pm (good pre-party for going out elsewhere), it costs £12.50, you can dress up like an idiot, run around Kensington Palace spying on puppet shows and participating in fun frolics then take your mischief elsewhere.

Another event that we’re super excited about is the Loud Tate Festival, at, believe it or not, the Tate. If you head south of the river on Saturday, you should find frolicking somewhere near that rather large red brick chimney, a free festival aimed at those who enjoy a little bit of art/culture/music. The frequenters are predicted to be young and free, so bring your skinny jeans and high tops or turned up chinos and espadrilles, down with the kids man.

After a Saturday night I plan to spend at Cargo, there’s a choice of two on Sunday. Two city festivals, Hungamunga and the Beach at Whitechapel. The first is £10 a day and from what I hear is £10 entry, once in, there are DJ’s, live acts, burlesque shows, paper mache, drawing, painting, knitting and sewing with all the materials provided free of charge. The latter, the now not quite so weird idea of a beach in the middle of the city, takes place near Whitechapel High Street, is free and includes the following: beachcombing for holiday novels, a rockpool of authors’ epigraphs and literary volleyball. Interesting. And free – even better.