Impromptu art for free, thanks to bikes

London, expensive? Nonsense! There's masses of free events around, and the best way of skipping between them is by bike. Outside Liverpool St station on Friday night, for instance, was one of the many free outdoor concerts as part of the City of London Festival. This violin-accordion duo got a few commuters tangoing, and - thanks to the area in front of the stage being on a busy bike thoroughfare - some impromptu bike ballet too.

(There's some more organised bicycle ballet at the National Theatre's free outdoor series, Watch This Space, on Sun 20 Sep.)


We're fans of such accidental bike art. Going home from the Liverpool St gig - a circuitous affair involving more free concerts and edible tablecloths - we passed these Dutch bikes, parked with pleasing symmetry on some work-unit stairs not far from the encouragingly named Trundle St.


There was even some unintended cycle-parking sculpture on the Walworth Rd, thanks to this van-resistant bike stand near East St. Whoever made these knows what they're doing: despite a topological transformation that wasn't in the design brief, it's still rock solid. Shame they didn't install our fitted kitchen.

(And in case you're wondering about the Dunwich Dynamo... unfortunately, a bad foot meant I couldn't risk it this year. But I'll definitely definitely do it next year...)