Have you taken the Great British Photograph? London is such a photogenic place – if you walk around London you will notice amongst other things that everyone has a camera, everyone is taking photos of all the wonderful iconic buildings. So why not try and win £5000 for your efforts?

There is a brand new competition where the prize for the best photo capturing the Great London Photo coud win you this amazing prize. The closing date s not until 30 September so you’ll have plenty of time.

When you’re thinking of what to take the photos of remember that it doesn’t just have to be famous landmarks. If you are thinking of landmarks though you might like to try these places. This list appeared in the UIC top 10 a while ago and is a list of 10 of the places where you get a fantastic view of some of the best known buildings in London. 1. Stand in front of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square and take a photo down Whitehall towards Big Ben with Trafalgar Square in the foreground

2. Stand in Parliament Square – in front of Big Ben and Parliament and stand in one of the old fashioned phone boxes – you can get all 3 in the same picture plus a bus and a London taxi if you’re careful

3. On Hungerford Bridge looking up the river towards St Pauls for a fantastic view of the London skyline, the NAtional Theatre and the South bank

4. On the Millenium bridge looking towards St Pauls Cathedral

5. On the Embankment (south side near the design museum) past Tower Bridge you can get a photo of the bridge and the Tower of London and the embankment

6. In Green Park outside Buckingham palace you can get the park and the London Eye in the same picture

7. From Primrose Hill looking south across London – you can see just about everything

8. From the river – you have to catch a boat going to Greenwich for this one – of the royal Naval College in Greenwich and in the background you can see the Royal Observatory. You’ll aslo get a great view of the Tower of London and Tower bridge as you go past.

9. At Buckingham Palace when the changing of the guard is happening – the soldiers marching and so on. This happens every other day in winter and every day in teh summer.

10. The Albert Hall, the Albert memorial and roller bladers in Hyde Park on a sunny Sunday morning

and if you want for some people ……

Camden Town at the weekend is probably the best place to get lot sof young people in an informal setting

So, get your camera out and get snapping

The latest project at UIC is our brand new radio station – RadioUIC. We spend some time planning this project and have approached it from different angles to give everyone the maximum benefit. The first and most important thing to note is that the programmes are made, edited and produced by the students. We will be putting out a programme once a week which will be there for you to enjoy at any time during the following week. The normal week’s planning is for the students to meet on Monday and talk through the different ideas for making the programme. This week for example there are 3 different programmes being made – one is about Pride – the big festival for Gay and Lesbian which tool place on Saturday in London. One of the students went there and interviewed some of the marchers about their experiences. Another programme is going to be about summer songs and the third is going to be a group discussion about the lyrics in songs – sometimes misunderstood and sometimes just not making any sense at all! Please listen in and see what the students are up to! The experience the students have during the making of the programmes is really interesting. They tell us that this is not only good fun, and perhaps useful for their futures (something to add to their CVs when they go back home – I’d imagine being able to say something like “editing programmes for a student radio show in English” would only be seen as positive) but ts an interesting way of learning English. Above all it gives conversation classes a real and authentic focus. You know that many conversation classes can see a little artificial – asking students to discuss things they may not really be interested in. With the radio show students can choose their topics and then get practice in planning in English – this can include all the skills, but primarily speaking and so really gives a great opportunity to develop these areas. Students don’t have to do anything particular – there are plenty of opportunities, so if they like speaking it’s easy – if writing or editing stories is more their thing then that’s also possible.

The first broadcast is scheduled for Thursday this week – 8th July!