Give them cake

A giant cupcake you say? In Covent Garden? Do I wanna go? Hell yeah! What do you take me for? Have I EVER turned down cake? According to Le cool London, there was going to be an unveiling of the most bigass cupcake. Luckily, I was heading out to central London anyway as upon surveying my wardrobe it occurred to me that I could quite easily dress like a 12 year old, but couldn't actually teach any in what I had. And seeing as Germany is quite a conservative and "proper" country, I had a feeling that my new place of employment would not appreciate me turning up in my hot pink patent adidas and 80's multicoloured-triangle patterned windbreaker.

I was expecting to find a gigantic cupcake that towered over me. It turned out to be a 1.25 x 1.2m artificial looking thing of which I couldn't see much of and had to climb onto a chair to just catch a glimpse, as there were burly mean-looking guards securing the immediate perimeter. What was in fact more impressive was the massive queue of people that snaked along towards Tavistock road, hoping to get a look and a bite of it. Many of them looked to be in their early teens. Don't they have school? Anyway, I had better things to do than to queue for cake, even if it was the most biggest record-breaking cupcake in the world. This included checking out the Covent Garden Real Food Market which I've been told is running till October.

There was a stall selling mini-cupcakes, yep that's right, mini- "I can't see it"-thumbsized-"I need a magnifying glass"- "one lick and it's gone" cupcakes for £1. Each. Each?!! Are you high?!! Forget that. I'm going to get my cupcake elsewhere.

Which I did later after getting bored bored of shopping, at a place called Candy Cakes located in the basement area of Covent Garden. The cake was good though half of it really was just sickly sweet icing that I had to scrape off. Dear Joma, will you please open a branch on this island?

Covent Garden shopping was getting old so I wandered towards Leicester Square and decided to head to the National Portrait Gallery. I was in luck. The BP Portrait Awards 2009 was still on. And many of the entries this year were outstanding. My particular favourite was the winner of the BP Young Artist Award (http://www.npg.org.uk/bp-portrait-award-20091/the-exhibition/prize-winners-home.php?prize_position=4). It was definitely a painting because up close you could see the paint (!), brushstrokes etc. But when you stepped back you couldn't help but stand there puzzled and think, it couldn't be?! It HAS to be a photograph. The definition, the lighting, the shadows....It was most incredible.