The list (number eight)

Here's an updated list with a few items crossed-out:

• Tour round Buckingham Palace
• Go up the BT Tower for the view
  
• Cycle around Richmond park
• Sneak into the fancy hotels - Hilton, Savoy etc
• Go to all the museums in London
• Go to all the major art museums in London
  
• Have a drink in the ice-bar off Regent Street
• Do the sing-along sound of music at the Prince Charles cinema
  
• Watch a film at the Electric cinema in Notting Hill
• Watch a film at a Leicester Square cinema
• Watch an IMAX film near Waterloo
• Go to a casino
• Explore the new O2 centre at the Millennium Dome
• Tour round the BBC TV centre and BBC Broadcasting House
• Watch a live, well-attended debate in Parliament (e.g. Prime Ministers questions)
• Go out for an artsy night out in the east-end.
• Shop at Petticoat Lane market
• Go on the rides at the London dungeons
• Sit in on a Sotheby's auction
• Eat at a traditional pie 'n' mash shop
• Tour round Lord's cricket ground
• Tour round Wembley stadium
• Go to the London wetland centre
• Visit Chelsea Physic Garden
• Get into London fashion week
• Tour around City Hall
• Tour around Tower Bridge
• Go to the tennis at Wimbledon
• See some plays
• Ride home in a rickshaw
• Eat at some famous restaurants
• Visit the hidden-away nature reserve behind St. Pancras station
• Visit a big mosque, big synagogue, other big places of worship
  
• Use an "isolation tank" near London Bridge
• Get a free Hare Krishna vegetarian meal
• Go to the the Jazz Cafe in Camden
• Go to some jazz club I've heard about in Soho
• Eat a meal in one of the touristy Leicester square steak houses
• Tour around Battersea power station
• Explore Heathrow Terminal 5
• Tour round Albert Hall and Albert Memorial
• Tour round Chiswick's Fuller's brewery
• Tour round Wandsworth's Young's Brewery
  
• Eat at the restaurant at the top of Tate Modern
• Visit an exhibition at Earls Court and Kensington Olympia
• Visit a city farm
• Tour round Thames barrier
  
• Visit a talk at the Royal Geographical Society
• Buy some food from a roadside taxi cafe
• Visit the London library at Piccadilly

Exhibition at Olympia

Website: http://www.eco.co.uk

Yesterday ABJ and I went to visit the London Fine Art Fair at Olympia exhibition centre. ABJ had managed to secure a free day-pass for two people for the fair so we turned up and saved a total of £22 in ticket prices. The exhibition centre was built in 1885 as a dedicated exhibition centre. It is not, as I had thought, a transformed train station...

After getting our bags searched we entered the cavernous exhibition space. It was a breath-taking first-impression - the huge expanse of girders was painted white and extended high above us:We walked thoroughly around the ground floor looking at the hundreds of different stalls along the way. We've both been to similar exhibitions and we both felt that this was was very quiet. Despite it being mid-afternoon on a Saturday there were very few people around and every stall looked pretty deserted of customers.
We saw lots of interesting things, many of them not things I would classify as "fine art". We saw suites of armour:as well as stalls selling exquisite fossils, retro film posters, furniture, even cold-war era binoculars... There were also a few paintings and sculptures, the kind of thing I would expect.

After snooping around the ground floor we ascended a flight of stairs to "The Orangery" and did a circuit up there. After I was hit by a hay-fever sneezing fit we continued on our way and took in the birds-eye view:
By this time we'd decided that everything was way out of our price range, so we left. ABJ had to have her bag searched again, even though it's far too small to steal anything that was on sale...

We saw a cute car on the outside:
Summary: Good to finally see the interior of the Olympia exhibition centre.