“I must say: very British, indeed!” as my aunt commented. Yesterday was the date for the annual Tweed Run and we went out to enjoy the nice weather and see the spectacle.

We had some problem figuring out the route they were taking but finally found them riding through Kensington Gardens in front of Royal Albert Hall.

It seems like the tweed thing is a whole tongue-in-cheek movement of endorsing gentleman-ship, gin drinking and pipe smoking manifested in the magazine The Chap.

“The Chap takes a wry look at the modern world through the steamed-up monocle of a more refined age, occasionally getting its sock suspenders into a twist at the unspeakable vulgarity of the twenty-first century.”

The people in tweed looked like they were truly enjoying their ride but so were all the people looking and there was quite a number of people out taking pictures of the spectacle.

This Sunday we set up a booth at the farmers market in Queens Park and held the first “Dr. Bike” event of the year. Here is one of the guys from Cycle Training UK helping me out with a kids bike.

We had Ann to help manage the queue and with six fixers we had our hands on 41 bikes in four hours. Busy times but it was great to help people get their bikes back on the road.

The cycling culture in London is still not that widespread but there are a lot of initiatives from the city and from non-profit outfits like the Cycletastic, Cycle Training UK and London Cycling Campaign. The people I meet from these organisations are really passionate about getting people to bike and it is great to see the grass-root spirit involved.

I’m not sure how the list is compiled but there are some really cool blogs on it – go have a look yourself.

There is a couple of my favorite London blogs that hasn’t made the list so I figured I’d give them props here:

• IanVisits – Ian is constantly on top of what’s going on under and over ground in London events.
• London Cyclist – Andreas is really busy creating resources for the biking crowd in London
• Ghost signs – Not exclusively a London site but very interesting nonetheless with old painted signs on house.
• From The Upper Deck – Another quirky blog where Przemek drives around on the double deckers of London and takes pictures out the window as London life goes by below him.
• Georgian London – excitingly writings about life in London in the 18th century
• Scandinaivian Kitchen – for everything homely on London

The conflict of the Balkans is not easy to understand – yet I think it is important that we try. This is a war that happened in our lifetime, right in the middle of Europe and with horrible war crimes of ethnic cleansing, genocide and rape camps.

I found the movie very interesting and it displays some of the dilemmas of trying to achieve justice for the atrocities while trying to rebuild the stability of the region and what one persons sacrifice mean in a bigger political game.

After the movie there was a panel debate with the former diplomat Charles Crawford, journalist Rajeshree Sisodia, Elena Wasylem from a rape victim help group and Lisa Gormley from Amnesty International. They all had some interesting inputs to the different themes of the film and put it into context. One of the things that they mentioned in the debate afterwards was that the bargaining and some of the actions of the barristers were quite unrealistic.

The film is a great example of European collaboration as it was created with funding from three countries and cast from at least eight.

Check out Ann’s blog post about the night as well :)

Update March 29th 2010: Charles Crawford wrote a nice piece on the film and the debate afterwards.

We live in the borough of Brent which is the most ethnic diverse in England and also the place with most Irish people in London. Wednesday last week was the real St. Patrick’s day which meant they put on a parade right down the street from us.

Around 6000 people came out and celebrated everything Green, Guinness and Irish and it was quite a show. It was great to see not just the Irish but everyone celebrating. Like these kids which looks anything but Irish playing the Bodhrán.

I also enjoyed the fact that the lineup before the actual parade was in front of the local mosque. Here with a truck with the title of an Irish rebel song called “Follow me up to Carlow” which is a celebration of an Irish victory over a 3000 men English army.

Peter Marshall the photographer was also in Willesden Green and as a lot more photos from the event.

The tube station at Chalk Farm is my favorite of the ones I have come across in London. It’s a big red triangular building on the corner of Adelaide Rd and Haverstock Hill.

It was opened on June 22nd 1907 and like a number of other stations built at that time it has ox-blood red glazed terracotta blocks on the front to provide it’s very bold unique look.

Have a look at other people’s pictures of the station on Flickr.

Yesterday the sun was out and the bagpipers where filling the streets of central London with Irish tunes.

Not all of it was particular Irish. For instance the most cheerful act was Hare Krishna worshippers playing, singing and dancing down the street.

Other than that it was a parade of big hats, green cars and white legs.

Ann had four Maltese friends staying over this weekend and the parade was the Sunday out event before they all went back home.

If you go to the north of England you will get your pint like the one on the left, smooth and creamy. If you ask for a pint in the south you will get one like the one on the right, clean and crisp. The two pints shown are the same beer but poured in two different ways that produces slight differences in taste. There is more of an explanation here.

Thursday Ann and I went to the February edition of London Bloggers Meetup. The meeting was sponsored by Greene King brewery who wanted to show of their new beer engine that could produce both Northern and Southern style pints. The head brewer John Bexon was there with another guy to tell about the beers and explained how to taste a beer.

I enjoyed speaking to other bloggers and having a night out. The beer was very good I enjoyed both versions – and it was free which makes it even better. We had a great evening where we got away with goody bags filled with interesting beers from the brewery and tickets for a rugby game but more on that some other time.

This weekend started off with a visit to a black box. Not just any box however it was Miroslaw Balka’s Box of Darkness at Tate Modern. A huge steel box that as you entered it completely covered you in darkness. It is 30 meters deep and as you walk in you can’t see anything – until you hit the back wall. A quite eerie sensation produced by simple means.

Last night we went to a sold out Pit at the Barbican to see Ursula Martinez. If that name doesn’t ring a bell you might remember the video of her doing a magic striptease trick that made it’s rounds on the interweb around 2006. She never intended for her act to be film but it did and eventually ended up online which caused a torrent of attention and fan mail.

Now she has turned this unsought celebrity status into a new show called My Stories, Your Emails which we saw last night and it was hilarious. First part was her telling embarrassing and funny stories from her life unrelated to the video. Then she showed the infamous clip and second part was her reading emails she received as response to the video. She did this while showing pictures sent along by the emailers and she impersonated the different accents of the people who have written her. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and so did Ann and who knows when I can watch striptease with her again without complaints ;)

We didn’t really know anything about the show before we went but it has been interesting to read up on the reviews and criticism of the ethics – or lack thereof of the show.

In Copenhagen I joined a bloggers dinner and learned about BarCamp through bloggers and in Prague I made a couple of Danish friends that I found through their blogs. I also met Empty Nested Karen and Minnesotan Al in Prague.

I’m trying to do the same in London but in London everything is so much bigger which is both good and bad. Good because you can find literally everything and all sorts of people, groups and activities. Bad because it easily becomes overwhelming and places and people are far apart. Nevertheless I’ve embarked on the London blogosphere and twittersphere.

Ann and I went to the Christmas gathering of a group called London Bloggers Meetup (#LBM) that organizes a monthly event for people who blog to meetup and chat.

The group was started two years ago by Andy and has gone from having a handful participants to having upwards of 100 now with the events getting booked out days or weeks before they take place. Here Andy is presenting one of the nights three speakers.

First speaker was a security expert from Symantec (who sponsored the bar tab), then followed one of the girls of Domestic Sluttery (they brought cookies!) talked about tips for bloggers and last was Arvind talking about Kiva – a microfinance project.

A great night and I got round to speak to a couple of bloggers like Jorgen, The Undercover Recruiter and Too Geeky Chris (and a couple I forgot, ups).

A few weeks later I went to West Hampstead a neighborhood 30 min walk away from here. There is an active and growing online community in West Hampstead that mainly engage on Twitter. Jonathan is the man behind the blog West Hampstead Life and he is also very active on Twitter where he has been the anchorman for a lot of events. I went to a meetup called a #WHampGather at Alice House a very cool pub/restaurant.

There were loads of people who turned up for the event, our corner was completely packed and the group was very divers. Again I met a lot of interesting people and had a good evening.

At both events there were prizes and gifts so from the bloggers meetup I came away with a copy of Symantics new anti virus program and the day after I won a lampshade and from the twitter event I won a cool Dot To Date calendar.