Central London Digest: Westminster: Sebastion+Barquet

Carlo Mollino @ Sebastian+Barquet

There's something voyeuristic - uncomfortable - about stealing glances into a departed artist's private oeuvres. Classy central London gallery Sebastian+Barquet is currently hosting Italian architect and designer Carlo Mollino's furniture pieces, and the skeletons contained within.

Perhaps the effects would have been greater had the twelve polaroids depicting semi-nude women (acquaintances ? lovers ? prostitutes ?) belonged to someone less obscurely famous. However, this invasion of post-mortem privacy of a stranger is somehow satisfying, even for the sake of fantasizing about what went on around the split seconds those photographs were captured.

Sabastian+Barquet
19 Bruton Place
W1J 6LZ

until 27.06.09

Greater London Pubs: Islington: Buffalo Bar

It could be the appeal of being five metres away from the tube station, or maybe the 'secret society' feeling of descending a bland flight of stairs into a marvellous neon cavern of fairy lights, dimly lit tables and independent press scatered everywhere.
Buffalo Bar is the beating indie heart of N1, with regular nights such as the mutton Club (every first Friday) or Silver Rocket (every third) throwing two fingers up to the glitz and glamour of London's overpriced and overrated club scene and even Camden's sanitized pop-rock nights.

259 Upper Street
Islington
N1

London Digest. Another London Pub : The MacBeth N1

Some places are best experienced on drugs. Disneyland is one such example. The Macbeth, a seemingly nondescript pub in Shoreditch, is a close second.

It's not so much the decor (which is unusual enough; a fresco/disco mash-up) which throws you into vivid disorientation upon arrival, as the patrons and the musical acts. The former resemble a Carroll-style reinterpretation of the Bohemian scene of 1880s Paris, while the latter possess the unusual ability to perform as if they're still strumming away in their bedrooms.

The MacBeth is a disorienting sort of place, a pub-nouveau to visit for a taste of something weird and wonderful.

70, Hoxton Street
N1 6LP

London Digest. Greater London pizza guide exposed !

London Digest: Medical review.

Expectations were set high for this Royal Society of Medicine exhibit. Images of 19th century medical illustrations and dusty ancient scrolls exalting surgical advancements emanated from the deliciously suggestive blurbs in the press.

In reality, Dreadful Visitations and Deliverances is a glass-covered shelf in the RMS library. Although some of the journal articles and books are mildly curious in an antique sense, this micro-exhibition bears little information or, indeed interest to anyone but the most fanatical student of medical history.

RMS Library
Royal Society of Medicine
1 Wimpole St, W1G 0AE