Things To Do In London Today: Monday 27 January 2014

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CreativeXPO 2014 takes place at Rich Mix, details below.

Listings

BLOOD: Today’s opportunities to donate blood are at Brewers Hall in Aldermanbury Square, Hornshey Parish Church in Muswell Hill and Wandsworth Town Hall. Free, see site for terms and conditions

OPEN AIR EXHIBITION: “Courage On Our Coasts” is the new Royal National Lifeboat Institution touring exhibition displayed in City Hall from today. It features some of the most striking photographs from the RNLI collection. Free, until 10 March.

CREATIVE INSPIRATION:  CreativeXPO 2014 takes place at Rich Mix, a free two-day-event aimed at people who want to get started in the creative industry, consisting of talks, demonstrations and exhibitor stands. Free, prebook seminars, 9am, continues tomorrow

OPULENCE: An interesting talk about the Cheapside Hoard, a fabulous cache of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewellery, currently on display at the Museum of London. Exhibition’s curator Hazel Forsyth explains the collection and its secrets at Guildhall Library.  Free, prebook, 2pm

EARLY CINEMA: 'Teenagers' didn't always exist. Matt Wolf is the director of Teenage, which will be screened at the JW3 in Finchley Road: trying to define a new idea of youth. £6/£3, prebook, 2.30pm

I HAVE A DREAM: Malika Booker hosts Architects of our Republic with protest/freedom songs from Charlie Dark in response to Martin Luther King Jr’s I Have a Dream speech, plus five specially commissioned poetry films. See it all at the Stephen Lawrence Centre in Deptford. Free, just turn up, 6.30pm

LECTURE: The Ethics of Nudge organised by the LSE at the Old Theatre, points out interesting questions about the influence of policy makers on people’s behaviours. You may find out that it’s not just about retirement savings… Free, just turn up, 6.30pm

COMEDY: Julian Barrett (of The Mighty Boosh) – or rather, his alter ego Jon Breeze – gets all touchy feely at the Soho Theatre with guests Will Adamsdale, Steve Evans, Matthew Steer and Steve Oram. £10, 9.45pm

SURPRISE FILM CLUB: The Duke Mitchell Film Club's first meeting of 2014 takes places at The Phoenix  Artist Club and it's a Super Special Secret Surprise night (try saying that after a couple of pints). Don't be expecting a regular night at the cinema — instead of a feature film, trailers, shorts and teasers will all form part of the agenda. Free, 7pm

MEET THE AUTHOR: Australian feminist writer Germaine Greer presents her new book 'White Beech — The Rainforest Years' at Kings Place. She’ll take you through her attempts to save the Australian landscape from modern times devastation. £9.50, prebook, 7pm

MUSIC: Jazz musician Ahmad Jamal performs at the Southbank Centre. He presents his latest recording, Saturday Morning. It promises to be an evening of enthusiastic jazz piano. £10-£37.50 + bf, prebook, 7.30pm


Good Cause of the Day

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. 'Take a step' is the online action campaign launched by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust on its website. The online action enables everyone to make a public pledge to do something good on the occasion of Memorial Day. You could share the life story of a survivor of genocide with your friends, attend an HMD activity or light a candle.

London Connection Puzzle

Congratulations to Josie Degaris, who was the first to work out the solution to our hardest puzzle ever (this was the first puzzle for which we had to deploy all four clues before someone guessed it). The clues were ‘General Charles George Gordon’, ‘Dean Stanley’, ‘Charles Darwin’ and ‘the Duke of Wellington’. The connection? All are the subjects of London sculptures by Sir W Joseph Boehm. We're told by puzzle-setter Sarah Perry that Boehm 'rather excitingly died in bed with Queen Victoria's daughter ALLEGEDLY!!'.

A new puzzle, set by winner Josie, starts tomorrow.

From the Archive

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time”, said Thomas Merton. On this day in 2012 we shared some pictures of Londoners looking at art. Looking at these pictures, we concur that Merton's quote is as true today as it was in 2012.

Londoddities

This week's theme is 'street oddities'. We start with this peculiar thoroughfare in Clerkenwell. This is Crawford Passage, a narrow lane that runs parallel to Farringdon Road, just behind the old Guardian offices. It must, we think, rank as London's narrowest street, given that the gap between the two sets of double-yellow lines is only 5cm. There are narrower alleys around town, but this one's all marked up like a proper road. If you were dumb enough to park in this pinch-point, would you get two tickets for contravening separate parking restrictions?

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