Sven lights up the ice

At last - it's time for Londoners to get their skates on. Tomorrow morning the highly-anticipated new ice rink in Somerset House's spectacular courtyard will open to the public for the first time in its extended winter season.

Tonight, though, a lucky group of 300 Evening Standard readers who won our competition last week will enjoy the chance to glide across the flawless 700 square metre expanse of ice at our special preview.

Apart from the London Knights ice hockey team, who will this afternoon join a group of children to subject it to some uncompromising quality control, the Standard winners will be the first Londoners to cut a swathe across the new rink. It is the second time Somerset House's wondrous neoclassical courtyard has been transformed for Christmas into an open air rink, which is sponsored by Wallpaper* and it is again supported by The Evening Standard.

Until Friday the yuletide tableau will miss one vital ingredient - a Christmas tree. Come Friday night, though, and the 40ft high Swedish spruce, cut from the forests outside Gothenburg, will be in place and ready to be lit for the first time by a man beloved of Sweden and England alike - Sven-Goran Eriksson.

The Swede will take time out from contemplating England's unhappy berth in the "group of death" at next summer's World Cup to flick a switch on the Somerset House Christmas tree lights at 6.30pm. The spruce will add its glow to the lighting and flamingtorches which will flank the icerink by night.

The rink will be open every day for six weeks - except for Christmas Day - a longer season than last year.

Then a rise in temperature briefly transformed the first Somerset House rink into unskateable slush, but thanks to ice-dressing machines and other technological developments organisers are confident they will have no problems this year.

Among the thousands expected at the rink will be 30 groups of children from 10 boroughs around the capital, who will have the chance to enjoy free skating sessions.

Under the eye of Somerset House's ice-marshals up to 60 children at a time will be taught to skate for free, thanks to the Somerset House Trust and John Lyon's Charity. The marshals-will also be poised to offer advice and a hand to the 2,000 or so members of the public expected to use the rink each day, all of whom will be provided with state-of-the-art Bauer skates.

Sir Timothy Sainsbury, chairman of the Somerset House trust, said: "This is an exciting moment in the calendar of Somerset House - after a year of tremendous success, with 1.4 million visitors."