Avoid the crowds - see some fantastic art for free

There are currently a number of 'big name' art exhibitions drawing big crowds in London including Picasso at Tate Britain,  Lucian Freud at the National Portrait Gallery and David Hockney at the Royal Academy. I'm sure these are all excellent exhibitions but at around £14 for a ticket, they're not cheap options and it seems a shame to pay so much for art that you have to see over the top of other people's heads.  Far better, I say, to take advantage of many of the free exhibitions available which bizarrely enough are sometimes less crowded than the paying ones.

I had this in mind when I found myself near the Tate Britain at lunchtime one day last week with an hour to spare. My main objective was to see an exhibition by the photojournalist Don McCullin that I'd read about. This was smaller than I'd expected - may be around 30 or so photos in total - but certainly didn't disappoint. The pictures, all black and white, were typically bleak but thought provoking, particularly the pictures of homeless people in East London which were taken in the 70s and 80s but could have been taken yesterday.

With abit of extra time on my hands, I had a quick look at some of the other parts of the Gallery. They are currently previewing an interesting-sounding exhibition called Family Matters that starts in October and which will show the way in which families have been portrayed in art through the ages. I can't imagine many family portraits like this nowadays.

I also saw the Chris Ofili painting 'No woman, no cry' which as well as being a beautiful piece of work is a tribute to Stephen Lawrence.

Finally, I watched a short piece of video art called 'High Wire' by Catherine Yass. I'm not usually that keen on video art but if you're a fan of 'Man on Wire' then you'll enjoy this short film of a man balancing on a tightrope suspended between two tower blocks (somewhere in London I think but I couldn't quite work out where). For some reason he doesn't walk all the way across but stops about two thirds of the way across and walks backwards to where he started - very nerve wracking even though you know he's unlikely to fall off.

So all in all an hour well spent.

Looking Forward to London Open House week-end

I was away last week and very busy before that so have not had a chance to blog for a couple of weeks but now I'm back and focused on what's coming up in London in the next month or so. This includes one of my favourite annual events on 17/18 September - London Open House week-end.

The event is always a great opportunity to see inside some of the many buildings in London that aren't usually open to the public and to marvel at amazing architecture and impressive interiors. In previous years I've visited many of London's historic buildings such as the Foreign Office, and the art deco Daily Express building in Fleet Street (which doesn't seem to be opening this year). I've also visited some less obvious London landmarks such as the SELCHP Energy Recovery Centre in Lewisham, a familiar site for anyone who catches the train into London Bridge from south-east London but not somewhere you often get to see inside.

It's great to see these sorts of places but it is often even more fascinating to visit some of the many smaller buildings that are open, including private homes which have been sensitively restored or have had architect designed renovations and extensions. Often the owner and/or architect are on hand to chat to you which always adds to the experience.

A few places require pre-booking (this opened last week and most places seem to be fully booked already) and if you want to visit the BT tower you'll have to try your luck in the ballot which opened at 10am yesterday and closes on 12 September. There can be long queues at some of the other more popular venues (the website and programme indicate where this is likely to be the case) but there are so many places open (over 700 according to the organisers) that you'll always find somewhere to explore. Best of all it is all absolutely free.

One way to avoid the queues is to volunteer as a steward or guide for half a day during the week-end which then gives you priority access for the rest of the week-end allowing you to jump the queue at busy buildings. I've volunteered in previous years - it's a good way of getting a detailed insight into a particular building as well as the other benefits and there's also a party for all the volunteers at the end of the week-end. It's probably too late to volunteer now for this year but you can find out more about doing it in future years here.

Gresham College Lecture at the Mansion House

Earlier this week, I had a chance to visit the home of the Lord Mayor of London, the magnificent Mansion House in the heart of the City, when he gave his annual lecture as President of Gresham College.

Gresham College is London's oldest Higher Education Institution and has been providing free public talks for over 400 years. Most of these take place at the Museum of London or at the college's own base in the City, Barnard's Inn Hall. However, in recent years there has also been an annual lecture by the Lord Mayor at Mansion House. The current Lord Mayor, Alderman Michael Bear, has been involved in many regeneration projects in his career as a property developer, including the one which was the subject of Tuesday's lecture - Spitalfields:Opportunity through Regeneration.

Having recently visited this area on a guided walk, it was very interesting to learn more about its recent history and the huge changes it has undergone since the process of redeveloping the market site began in the early 90s. Alderman Bear was Chief Executive of the Spitalfields Development Group and most of his lecture focused on the work of this group, describing the process of relocating the existing fruit and vegetable wholesale market, developing a number of different masterplans and the planning battles involved in removing the market which had been opened there as a temporary measure in 1991. As might be expected from a site with such a long history, alot of money had to be spent on archaeological digs. As well as the charnal house that I already knew about they also found the sarcophagus of a Roman princess.

There was a strong emphasis on involving the local community throughout the 20 year redevelopment and also, of securing community benefits through developer agreements and the Lord Mayor presented some impressive statistics on the impact that the changes have had on the deprivation indices for the area. So the project seems to have been successful in regeneration terms although of course, with any regeneration project, there is always the issue of whether the changes are due to improvements of the circumstances of those who lived in the area originally or changes in the population of the area. I was too polite/reticent to put my hand up to ask about this when there was a brief opportunity for questions at the end of the lecture.

As I'm never likely to be invited to the kind of dinners and banquets that are normally hosted at Mansion House, the event also offered a great opportunity to see inside this building. The hall where the lecture was held was full of gold leaf, stained windows and huge statues. And if all that wasn't enough we were even given a book about the Spitalfields redevelopment to take away with us afterwards.

Gresham College offers several lectures each week throughout the year (although none in August) on a wide range of topics including business, history, music and science - I particularly like the fact that they have a 'very unusual'category. You can just turn up for most of them although there are few like the Lord Mayor's one, that you need to book in advance.