London Metropolitan University Open Day

I visited East London today to see the jewellery department at the London Metropolitan University, as part of their open day. I came away very jealous of their facilities, and their work space. It's huge! A room dedicated to enamelling, a room dedicated to etching, a room dedicated to stone setting... a room... you get the picture :-)

Here's the link if you are thinking of enrolling...

East London is a really interesting place, and it's changing so fast. Every time I go there - more huge office buildings have sprung up. However you can still catch glimpses of the past, and I was quite surprised to see this still there:

A small reminder of the Jewish population that used to live in the area (including my family). I did a bit of research online and have found that it used to be the emblem of the Jewish Daily News newspaper that was once in that building. The sign was designed by Arthur Szyk in the Arts and Crafts style.

I also got a chance to photograph a nice pub sign which I spotted last time but didn't have my camera on me:

I love the gold and black - here's another one from an earlier blog post.


Then into Oxford Steet, which seems to have quite a strange theme for the Christmas lights this year - cobwebs and umbrellas (?)