We posted this on our twitter feed on Friday, but it was such a fascinating video, I thought it deserved a bigger write up.

A visual tour around London’s most quirky ‘hidden’ landmarks by Youtuber ChrisCLondon, it’s full of incredible facts and quirks and features locations that even most lifelong Londoners won’t know about. My Londonphile geeky brother only got 8 out of 10, failing on his knowledge of the Victorian Pet Cemetery and the minature bronze St Paul’s Cathedral…

My personal favourite story is the one about the tank – A property developer was denied planning permission by the council to build a block of flats on the Old Kent Road. Infuriated, he reapplies, but this time with plans for a tank. Thinking he means septic tank, the council grant permission, only for the man to install a genuine T34 tank from the First World War on the patch of land. Painted bright pink. With the gun tower pointing towards the council offices.

We found this video on the VisitLondon blog. Aside from posting cool videos, VisitLondon have helped Metrotwin considerably by adding loads of great places and lists to our site. These are some of the best:

Toy Shops – There is more to London than Hamley’s y’know..

Arts and Craft Shops in London – To help you stand out from the Primarni crowd.

City Farms – Escape from the rat race and pet a pig.

Eco-Friendly London – Glorious ways to go green.

Unique Cinemas – For when you want to see something that didn’t cost billions and doesn’t feature Adam Sandler, a talking monkey and a highly implausible series of events.

A great find by BBH-Labs, via @finnbarrw. We’ve posted some ‘toy-town’ style photography of London on this blog before. Now, here’s a little film using yhe same technique (although in this instance the filmaker Sam O’Hare also faked it a bit in post) but the effect is to bring a liliputian dimension alive in motion, and it’s very lovely.

This is a stunning piece of film, shot by Sam O’Hare (and uploaded to Vimeo).

For best results hit HD and watch in full screen. And turn it up.

There’s a really great interview with O’Hare here, on the Aero Film site. Here’s a sample, in which O’Hare talks about the equipment he used in putting this together. It involved over 35,000 stills.

The music is perfectly matched. It was specially written by Rosi Golan and Alex Wong, and composed by Human.

The film sucks you in. You look for faces – but you don’t find a single one. It’s hyper-real to the point of being surreal. We love it.

Watching clouds is always a lovely way to spend time, if it’s a nice day and you’re under a shady tree. Richard Carroll has made a nice stop-motion film of the clouds during the night, however – last week, somewhere in London. The night sky is something we often forget is as beautiful as day.

Wind of Change from Richard Carroll on Vimeo.

Absolutely gorgeous video that chronicles 25 hours in wonderful, romantic, colourful Manhattan – one look at a video like this and I really feel like going back to New York. Here’s a quick description of the video in the words of Charles Frisby, the Vimeo user who created the video:

25 Hours in Manhattan was shot in chronological order. I opened with a time lapse shot of sunrise at 6:30am on Saturday and ended with a time lapse shot from Columbus Circle, ending the shoot at 7:30pm.

25 Hours in Manhattan (Canon 7D) from Charles Frisby on Vimeo.

The National Gallery is usually a place one associates with the Master artists such as Van Gough, Da Vinci and Vermeer, not red lights and ladies of the night, despite the role of many such females as muses and inspirations for the works on display.

For this reason, there has been a fair amount of controvesey over the new instillation by Ed and Nancy Kienholtz that allows visitors to wander through a recreation of Amsterdam’s red light district. The Horengracht is an eerie, atmospheric experience, not unlike the London Dungeons, albeit in far more painstaking detail and without the awful jobbing actors in Victorian garb jumping out at you hollering a load of rubbish about ‘the daemon they call Jack’.

The video below does a pretty good job at justifying the artwork (and probably gives you a better idea of what it is like than my rather plebby touristy allusions). Warning: takes about 30 seconds to load at times.

If you are in the area and fancy a break from the winding dark streets of old Amsterdam, why not check out these nearby places:

The National Dining Rooms – located in a wing of the National Gallery, it serves great organic fayre.

The Oldest Photo in London - was taken nearby. Check it out and then try and place the modern location.

Davenport’s Magic Shop – More than just a place to pick up whoopie cushions, this great store has an in-house magician too!

Haymarket Hotel – a quirky boutique hotel with an eye-popping indoor pool.

Burger Shack - Nom nom