Londonitourist

I didn't feel like writing, so I went to the Hayward Gallery to checkout 'How to Improve the World' a festival of 60 years of British Art. Worth catching - featuring artists as diverse as Hockney, Freud, Bacon, Hepworth, Moore, Hirst & Ofili.

I couldn't get a ticket to see Rodin at the RA, but as that will run until January i'll catch it when I get back.

The Tate Modern was featuring 'Poetry & Dream' - an exhibition of lesser-known surrealist works. Carsten Holler's slides in the turbine hall were a big draw. It was also the spot where a striking-looking young woman was snapping away at me (must have been my shuffling gait and pimp jacket).



The final stop was the Purcell Room, which had bi-lingual readings of the latest Russian fiction from young authors published in Glas (you could call it Russia's equivalent of Granta). Particularly striking was 'Argun' by Arkady Babchenko, who wrote of his experiences as a Russian army conscript fighting in Chechnya. The war dragged him out of law school, and since being demobilised, he has worked as a journalist for Novaya Gazeta - he had the office next door to Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered on Saturday.