Somerset House

Of course one can say how expensive London is. Indeed I have always taken a perverse pleasure from the knowledge that pretty much wherever I go on holiday it will always be cheaper than where I live. But then again, there is so much one can do for free, and that's not just limited to the big museums. You just have to get out there and look.

I took advantage of the sunny Sunday to potter around the West End, but with particular focus on Somerset House as it had a couple of exhibitions on which I wanted to see.

Now in the first place this is a lovely building, with its huge central courtyard, which in winter is turned over to an ice-rink.

But even apart from the permanent collection, there are always interesting exhibitions. And interesting spaces. As well as the huge terrace at the front with views over the Thames.

And the Stamp staircase.

First up was the exhibition of photographs from Dazed & Confused magazine. This was all done in a suitably cool and zany way, as you would expect from a magazine that basically prizes itself on being too cool for skool. A fine example is the text accompanying a photo of a youth looking in a mirror, and I paraphrase here, "I am cool because I am skinny. If I wasn't skinny I would be hot. I like looking at myself, but I am way too cool to look at you. And you are too pathetic not to look at me." (And I felt all the cooler going round it by listening to Ritual by White Lies on my mp3 player at a decent volume. Doesn't work so well at, say, a Pre-Raphaelite show.)

It is all style over substance, but it all works on how immediately arresting the image is. Take for example, this boy, dressed as punk and then preppy juxtaposed. Well I think its striking.

A second exhibition, all substance over style this time, but also free was down in the warren of little rooms and lanes underneath the House. It s called Forgotten Spaces and is a series of projects for uses for waste spaces around London. A few are a little bizarre or over worthy, but some are just inspired, like the urban climbing and potholing facility suggested for a disused section of underground beneath Clapham high Street. Or a project involving drying out derelict St Saviours Dock, turning it into a beach with a bank to one side and covering it over with a translucent sheet, onto which in the evenings films could be projected which you could lie back and watch. A really interesting series of exhibits and a true example of innovative thinking.

And thirdly there was the Venice in Peril exhibition in Embankment Galleries. This is just a great exhibition space. One could almost go just to look at the space. But the various photos of the city, and varied is the watchword, were well worth the fiver admission money.

And below that is a little permanent exhibition with one of the old barges that used to be able to come up to the Palace in the days when access by the River was better than road.

On top of that I just pottered around to take snaps of some of the lesser known sites of London, like Waldorf Hotel, Bush House, the RSA, the courtyard of the RA, with its temporary constructivist tower and Burlington Arcade. All free, although I did buy half a dozen dance cds while pretending to go xmas shopping. And a sandwich from Tescos. But all pretty good value.