Yesterday I attended the 11th Medical Innovations Summit held at the Royal Society of Medicine.
Like everyone else, I usually attend these events because there is a chance you may get to actually listen to an interesting presenter, or learn about a true innovation. But I usually leave disappointed due to a number of reasons like too much hype and lack of substance, bad organisation, “innovations” that are not really innovations, or bad presenters.
On Friday I attended the 20/21 British Art Fair at the Royal College of Art, in London.
Usually I love art fairs, and find many exciting works of art. I particularly love the creative energy you can feel at contemporary art fairs.
This one was not an exciting fair. Perhaps because it is modern and contemporary, perhaps because it is limited to British artists, or perhaps because this year’s selection was not that interesting.
Last month we took the kids to an idyllic English countryside retreat: the Four Seasons Hampshire, where we stayed in two adjacent suites.
Not far from London, it has everything a kid can dream of for a wonderful countryside vacation: green hills, a fishing pond, clay pigeon shooting, indoors heated swimming pool, bicycles, a large collection of DVDs, library, a playground, a rope-adventure course, a crocket lawn, tennis courts, a kids playroom with videogames, foosball, pool table… even a resident black labrador dog called Oliver!
This summer we have enjoyed London and its surrounding areas as tourists with the kids.
Due to the personal nature of this post, I will keep it brief and pictures, as usual in this blog for privacy reasons, will not show my kids.
Places we went to:
Although some years ago we went to Legoland Billund, we wanted to check this one out. As expected, it was a lot of fun (especially if you are a Lego fan… and who isn’t?
This summer I have had several work meetings around London. Some of the most interesting, cool and fun:
At London Blackfriars Railway Station NHS Test Beds 2nd round event at the Kia Oval… with a live cricket match going on! (it was somehow distracting, if only because I don not understand this game) Handing out student awards at PwC At London BioScience Innovation Centre At Google
On Friday I acquired two very different works of Japanese fine art.
One was a very rare and wonderful find: an original Ukiyo-e woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), whose “Great Wave off Kanagawa” is one of the best-known works of Japanese art, titled “Wavy shadow of Mount Fuji” from the “One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, Vol. 2” Series, created in 1835. The “One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji” series was featured by the British Museum in 2001 and is part of the MET Museum collection in New York.
Anyone who knows me knows I am crazy about all things Japanese; so since it has been so long that I have been in Japan, I decided to attend the HyperJapan event taking place in London`s O2 arena.
It was a blast! Many booths with Japanese merchandise, videogames (with a huge Nintendo area), clothing (like Aoi or the supercool t-shirts of Askew Gaming), manga artists, publishers (like Kaori, or Kodansha), bookstores (like JP Books), jewelry (like LittleMoose or Jane Nevermore), designers (like Ayako Shirata), art galleries (like CelGa or The Japanese Gallery), tourism info and institutions (like Japan Foundation), Japanese schools (like Alpha), steampunk (like Mikie & Co.
