Anna + Elena Balbusso

picture taken from here
cover for Eugene Onegin

The Balbusso twins are illustrators, I saw a sample of their work on a recent visit to the V&A. They have won the 2013 V&A Illustration award for their illustrations for Alexander Pushkin's book, Eugene Onegin. 

picture taken from here 

Having a gander at their website, Anna and Elena have also illustrated few other books including Beowulf  and one of my favorite novels The Handmaid's Tale, by Margret Atwood:-

pictures taken from here 

The Reading Girl- Theodore Roussel

Freemasons' Hall, The United Grand Lodge of England

United Grand Lodge of England 

We went inside the Freemasons' Hall as part of Open House weekend. I've been wanting to go for a while as secret societies and conspiracy theories fascinate me. Plus when I used to work nearby I would often see men with matching ties and briefcases go inside the Hall for clandestine meetings.

Freemason lodges in England 

Actually the Freemasons' Hall was disappointingly un-secretive, the Masons were very welcoming and inviting towards visitors. There's even a museum an information booklet and regular tours. So much for conspiracy theories and world domination plots. If you want to know more about the Freemasons their website is suitably vague/informative or you could always read Freemasonry for Dummies which was available to buy in the gift shop.

Symbolism is important to the Freemason society, five and six pointed stars can be found all over the building.

floor of the United Grand Lodge 

The five pointed star,the 'pentalpha', represents the five points of Masonic fellowship. For Pythagoras (an important figure to the masons) it was symbol of perfection and the universe. The Pentalpha is also an ancient emblem of good luck and health.

Celling of the United Grand Lodge 

The six pointed star, the 'hexalpha', (common also in Jewish faith, the star of David) is for Freemason known as the Seal of Solomon and is the badge of Royal Arch Freemasonry.

Other important Masonic symbols include:-

wheat = resurrection

lotus = waters of life

irises = eternal life 

doors to the Grand Temple, each door weighs 1¼

   tons and depicts the building of Solomon's temple 

The Grand Temple 

Open House London

It is Open House London this week, which means building of historical, cultural or architectural importance open their doors to the public for free. Loads of properties take part, from tower blocks to embassies, from churches to the Bank of England. At most locations entry is at  first come first served basis, but for others it is pre-book only, or a lucky dip ballot.

Obviously some properties are more popular than others, like thousands of other people I wanted to see inside the iconic Battersea Power station, but we quickly gave up on this plan when we saw the massive queue.

The Bank of England 

Other properties were equally busy, like the Bank of England, again the queue was huge so we just had to be satisfied with seeing the outside.

We did manage to make it inside the Custom House. Which rather interesting history was enthusiastically told by a current employee, it's always nice when you can tell someone genuinely loves their job. The custom house used to be very  important as it was here that revenue from ships from all over the Empire would be collected. They officers where also responsible for preventing smuggling and things used to get pretty rowdy as they used to carry muskets.

After spending most of the morning traipsing all over London, we refuelled at My Old Dutch pancake house in Holborn. Me and my sis both opted for banana, chocolate and nut pancakes. Before heading on to the Freemasons' Hall.

pancake with chocolate, nuts, banana and cream. 

If you're thinking of doing Open House next year here are a couple of top tips:

1. Pre-book and enter the ballots in advance. We were very disappointed we were too late to enter the ballot for 10 Downing Street. Pre-booking also means guaranteed entry, I'm sure many people didn't even get inside the places they spent hours queuing for.  
2. Plan your route carefully. If you you go to the popular properties, you may be limited to only seeing one building and you can expect long queues so bring a book. 
3. Go off the beaten track. We didn't have to queue at all to go to the Custom House or the Freemason's Hall
4. Bring a map or a smartphone. A lot of the buildings are not signed posted. As both my sister only have ancient nokia's we had to rely on our own dodgy sense of direction. We got lost a lot. 

Wrest Park Library

Though most of the rooms at Wrest Park are currently out of bounds, luckily the library is accessible and  full of lots of lovely, musty books.

After visiting Wimpole I  really appreciate how much time and effort it takes to care for and maintain a library of this size. 

Man Booker

It's been announced today that all novels written in English will be eligible to win the Man Booker Prize, currently only authors from the commonwealth, Ireland or Zimbabwe are considered. There has been some controversy over this decision, as it may be difficult to decide on which books are nominated.

Personally I think it's a good thing, by opening up the entry requirements it ensures that the prize remains relevant and the winner is of the highest caliber. By not allowing countries such as America to compete, it send the message that the organisers are threatened by US talent. There was a suggestion that a parallel US only prize would be introduced, but I'm really glad that they scrapped that idea.

According to the BBC website Hillary Mantel sold 1,846 copies of Bring up the Bodies in the UK a week before the Man Booker Prize was announced, and sold 10,605 copies the week after her win. Clearly the prize has a lot of influence, so I think writers from all over the world deserve the same opportunity.

What do you think? Should the Man Booker Prize go global?

Wrest Park

Home to the De Grey family for more than 700 years, Wrest Park is currently undergoing an intensive restoration plan by English Heritage. The project is expected to take 20 years and was started in August 2011, so most of the house is off limits, but the gardens are spectacular.

The French style château was built in 1830's by Thomas Earl de Grey a politician and first Lord of the Admiralty (not to be confused with Charles Earl of Grey of tea fame). The house remained in the family until 1917, when the 9th Baron Lucas, a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps was killed in action.  

.

shame

"In The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera implies he feels ashamed at having to name his characters [...] what could be more vulgar than to arbitrarily give- from a childish desire for verisimilitude or, at best mere convenience- an invented name to an invented character?" 

- Laurent Binet, HHhH

Phlegm Comics

Phlegm is my favourite street artist. He is based in Sheffield, so I used to walk past some of his work when I was at Uni. I recently bought a book of his pen and ink illustrations.

Retro from Scratch

Thought I'd share this with you Retro from Scratch, handmade stationary and bunting made from up-cycled vintage books.

picture taken from here

With the new school/ uni term just starting the bunting would be a good idea to jazz up your dorm room or use one of the notebooks in your seminars.

Etsy shop