Let Them Find Cake

Today was a bit of a gloomy Sunday, so we lounged around home until mid-afternoon. When we finally made it out of the house, we didn't venture far, taking the bus down to Shoreditch Town Hall for the East London Design Show. Pretty things in a pretty room, with free strings of Christmas lights being given away at the door made for an enjoyable visit.

As we were leaving the building, I noticed this interesting sight:

The slogan "More light, more power" first caught my eye, but the two-bodied, one-headed lion made this a must-photograph coat of arms. I later found out that the motto arose out of the forward-thinking district's innovative burning of residents' sewage to generate power for lighting Victorian Shoreditch streets. When we left the hall, Bob told me to turn around, and this is what we saw:

Sitting all alone on the ledge by the hall entrance, the teeny cupcake with its Alice in Wonderland instruction seemed completely out of place on busy Old Street. The back of the sign directed us to a website for something appropriately called The Great Cake Escape, whose purpose is to "see cakes invading the streets every day" so that "a trail of brightly coloured treats shall populate the urban landscape forever more!" As the website sums up: "Let them find cake on the streets of east London." Although we didn't end up eating the cupcake, it distracted us just long enough to realise that there was an art show of some sort taking place in the hall's basement. The East End Arts Club Show ended up being fascinating--while the art was often interesting, it was the space itself that was incredible. A dilapidated urban space with art being shown in every corner (usually with plastic containers of rat poison nearby), there's no way that any public exhibition would be allowed to be held in such a space in Vancouver. Exploring the Shoreditch Town Hall basement was one of those experiences that makes London great.

After a stop at a nearby gallery, we wandered toward home, noticing this striking new mural

alongside two older stencils under the same railbridge.

We could barely make out the details in the darkness, and the rubbish bags in front of the second stencil made the scene seem even more sad. Walking a bit more, we finally decided to catch a bus home, but not before we spotted a drum kit smiling at us from an otherwise dark landscape across the street.