The Museum of Miniature Found Objects has had a lot of queries from recent visitors, and to assist future visitors, here are our answers to some of those questions:

= the IT/media suite has a full range of audio-visual equipment available;
= the Michelin-starred restaurant is open from 6.30pm;
= our celebrated range of museum jams and chutneys can be purchased in the gift shop;
= the main exhibition hall is available for hire for conferences and weddings;
= the museum provides daily guided tours (please meet at the reception desk);
= there are lifts to all floors and the museum is fully wheelchair accessible;
= a full programme of holiday workshops for children is available (please contact the reception desk);
= job opportunities and internships are available and are advertised on our website.

Here's another item from the collection held by the Museum of Miniature Found Objects. This was found at 11.27am, at the foot of the flight of steps leading up to 74 Tollington Park in north London, on Tuesday 15 June 2010. This, along with the little hand, is one of the earlier pieces of the collection. The inaugural item, however, will be showcased in a forthcoming entry.

Today is the official launch of the Museum of Miniature Found Objects. The exhibit is a hand, measuring 21mm by 11mm by 12mm, and was found at 1.21pm in Laycock Park in Islington on Friday 20 August 2010. As the collection grows, new items will be on display. However, rigorous criteria for entry to the museum’s collection will apply, and it is anticipated that the collection will expand rapidly over within a short period of time, as the Museum of Miniature Found Objects' role grows.

The criteria:

(i)    Items must measure no more than 50mm by 50mm by 50mm.

(ii)   They must be found by chance.

(iii)  They can be found in any environment outside my home.

(iv)  They must be made of a durable material.

(v)   On finding an object, the time, place and date of finding must be recorded.

This is one of the dust jackets that Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell doctored. They used to steal books from the Essex Road Library in Islington and change the covers, making their own additions from art plates they'd also removed from library books. They'd then sneak the books back onto the shelves and wait to see the reactions of people browsing the shelves who took down one of these books to read. The defacing was done with great care, and a lot of humour. This care underlined the seriousness of their protest at the sheer awfulness of the books available in their local libraries and, more seriously, the rigid and conservative morality of the time (late 1950s and early 1960s), particularly that of the 'genteel' middle classes. And it got them six months in prison when they were eventually tracked down (though Orton believed the sentence was because they were openly gay, and were not prepared to be discreet about it).

Here's a photo I took recently of one of my favourite spots in London — it's looking up river from the Hungerford Bridge, towards St Paul's and the City. There are few open spaces in London where your gaze can wander uninterrupted. That's one of the joys of the river — the absence of clutter and busyness makes it feel a bit like a visual breathing space. And the curve of the river presents a sweep of striking (and not-so-striking) buildings. I like standing on this bridge and feeling the pulse of London all around me, feeling at the heart of it all.

The Periwig Maker

The Periwig Maker is a combination of beautifully crafted animation and desolate subject matter, made in 1999 by brother-and-sister team Steffen Schäffler and Annette Schäffler. They adapted it from Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year, written in 1722. A solitary wig maker seals himself up in his shop as the pestilence spreads across London, filling its plague pits. Across the street from his shop he watches its particular effects on the Angel Tavern. Its sophisticated stop-motion puppetry is used to great effect, with the wig maker's voiceover, reading from his journal in an authoritative voice, contrasting with his fearful isolation.

China Breakthrough!