As well as late-night networking read flirting opportunities events and private views Thursday to Saturday until 7
Posted in General on 13. Oct, 2010
As well as late-night networking (read flirting opportunities) events and private views (Thursday to Saturday until 7.30pm, plus bars and theatre until late), they also hold Sunday brunch events where coffee, croissants and stimulating conversation will set you back £3. The clientele at the Sunday social morning are a mix of late 30s, 40s and even 50-somethings, falling on the sleeker side of bohemian.Expect a younger, kookier crowd at Bradford’s National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, where you can catch the provocative “Unknown Pleasures” photography exhibition, then watch a late film or hang out with a beer at the hip Pictureville caf?ar until 9pm.Birmingham’s contemporary arts den, the Custard Factory, is the place to be, with creative aficionados enjoying a hive of events and activities from digital arts, theatre and dance to, bars, caf?and bijoux galleries. “We’ve just started opening later to cater for the growing numbers of people who want to come in the evenings,” explains Adam Meade, the gallery co-ordinator. ‘Sometimes I feel like a barman at last orders and have to flash the gallery lights on and off to get people to leave.’Back in London, the Victoria & Albert museum’s Late View, held on the last Friday of every month, is possibly the wildest arts evening around, attracting a totally different audience from the average V&A brigade. The hip new artocracy queue to get in and listen to cutting-edge DJs such as Aphex Twin, watch cool catwalk shows (the next one is by Eley Kishimoto on 28 March), enter debates about design and the arts, and drink in the ever-so-stylish Dome bar.Other venues are more first-date material: Urbis, Manchester’s museum dedicated to city living (see Daytripper, below), boasts Le Mont, a classy restaurant which is also home to Britain’s newest Bollinger champagne bar and hosts gourmet events for art-loving lovers. Ends 18 May.Tate (020 7807 8000; .uk)Late at Tate Modern – Friday and Saturday until 10pm, though the bar and restaurant is open until 11pm. Next Late at Tate Britain, 16 May until 9pm.Royal Academy of Arts (020-7300 8000; .uk)Late Night Latin, Friday until 10pm, late view Saturday until 10pm.
Born in Berlin and educated in Liverpool, Louisa Waugh skipped university and found herself teaching in Ulan Bator after she hopped off the Trans-Siberian Express while heading for Beijing. Then, tiring of the city, she headed for the Steppe, where Tsengel became her home. For a year Waugh faced the challenges of living in Mongolia’s western-most village surrounding nomadic settlements. A few ugly breeze-block buildings stood in the central square, just down the track from the clinic, but everything else was built from wood and mud: the homes, the hashsas (fenced yards), the trench toilets, and a series of small buildings with low, padlocked doors, which I guessed were stores and kiosks. Dirt tracks trailed through the village, pitted with stones and roamed by packs of rancid, limping dogs .. There was no one about.
But I walked on in the brilliant cold sunshine, because there was no reason to return to the lonely clinic. Dark, low-lying mountains surrounded the village on three sides, their crests smeared in snow. On the other, a wide hill displayed an outlandish-looking settlement of ornate quadrangles and white conical turrets. I wondered who on earth lived there.I followed several gaunt cows to the edge of the river. Its waters were frozen so solid they reminded me of huge, uneven slabs of white marble I gazed across the frozen vista. I suddenly realised I’d never seen a sky like this before: a startling, cloudless cobalt sky, which soared across the roof of this desolate valley, and gave the village a sudden, silent beauty.People I finally saw some villagers. Five pensioners tottered towards me, their faces as creased as scrunched brown paper.