Whether you're rich, poor, British, foreign, young, old - you can enjoy the treasures of our museums and galleries.

Of course, while museums are funded by the state, they still rely on generating some external revenue - hence the ubiquitous gift shop and major corporate donations.

In the front of most museums, you'll find a vessel for collecting donations. Usually half full with pound coins, Euros, and Dollars. On entering the British Museum recently, I saw a new way to donate - QR codes!

Let's take a closer look at that code:

If you scan it, your QR reader should prompt you to send a Premium Rate SMS to 70070 - a charity donation service run by Just Giving.

Just about anyone with a UK SIM will be able to send a fiver - no messing about with passwords, logging in, credit card numbers - it comes straight off the phone bill.

Setting It Up

It's really very easy to use the SMS feature of QR codes. Assuming you've already got a number which can receive messages, you simply need to enter this text into your QR code:

SMSTO:07700900617:Hello

Which will appear as:

Scan it and you QR scanner should open up your SMS app, and you can choose whether to send or not.

So, there you go! A really simple way to turn QR codes into donations using the ubiquitous SMS.

The Real Game

This is still in "beta" so I can't say too much about it. It's a spy game with a twist. You and your partner race around London solving clues. All the while you are being chased by a "Dagger" team whose aim is to solve the same clues, find you and photograph you.

Running around London solving riddles is fun in of itself - but what heightened the experience was the constant "chatter" between your team and "Control".

The paranoia of thinking you're about to be rumbled is enhanced by hearing about the movements of your "enemies", how other teams are progressing, and helpful clues around the way.

The game took in several familiar locations - Waterloo, Tate Modern and the British Museum - which really made me investigate aspects of the spaces that I simply hadn't seen before.

Subtle Mob

Billed as the polar opposite of a FlashMob - a SubtleMob is a performance piece for two people in a crowd.

A group of people listen to the same MP3 - started at exactly the same time - and follow the performance round the streets of London. You're never quite sure who is playing, nor if they're listening to the same track as you. As the performance progresses, you're asked to perform subtle actions. The people wandering around the street shouldn't notice that you're doing anything out of the ordinary.

Here's a video showing one from last year.

It was one of the most intense experiences I've ever had in London. I've seen performances in lots of London theatres - some big, some in the back room of pubs - but "As If It Were The Last Time" was the most personal, moving and bewitching "show" I've witnessed. Truly magical.