Kinky Boots

High street stores that are offering something else for the weekend

You know me, I'm a girl who likes to shop and Oxford Street is my mecca. It's about as London as a street's going to get: ephemeral, exciting, with high-life and low-life jammed up next to each other. These days though, the boundaries between high-life and low-life are getting increasingly blurred. Harmony and Anne Summer’s shops are sprouting up like mushrooms in a pine forest and Boot's, of all places, is about to sell sex-toys. I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about browsing in the aisles of the chemist for shampoo and stumbling across a bedroom-buddy, but it seems I'm in the minority – sex is here to stay.

The thing is, no matter how you package sex-shops, they're still for men. Harmony's flagship store looks quite classy from the outside, with its sheer glass walls and tastefully playful photography, but inside it’s no different from a bead-curtained Soho shop. Grey haired men stare longingly at racks of magazines and DVDs while the few women browse uncomfortable and tacky underwear.

My obvious aversion for these places stems not from any moral distaste (you should have seen the outfit I wore to the last office party) but rather from the fact that they display a lack of imagination on behalf of my fellow females. There are so many better places in this fine city to get kitted out in something sexy. One of my own personal favourites, Agent Provocateur, is in the middle of Soho and it’s stocked with the finest (and sexiest) underwear you could possibly imagine. Everything in this excellent shop is tastefully designed to stimulate the imagination rather than to titillate weirdos. As soon as you enter and meet the elegantly attired staff you’re encouraged to relax while you discuss exactly what you want. And, one of the best things about the place is its boy-friendly, so you never know, you might end up with something special in your stocking this Christmas.

If, ladies, you do want to be that little bit more adventurous, there's always Coco-de-Mer, set up by Sam Roddick (daughter of Anita 'Bodyshop' Roddick) it's a sex shop for women. It sells the kind of stuff you’d expect but it's more focused on seduction than sex, so the books and art it sells are all stylishly graceful, rather than open and obvious. Rather than a black plastic bag that's about as subtle as the stuff inside it, you get a smart, designer-labelled shopping bag you can be seen with. Much more my kind of place.

So girls, use that imagination, please. Sex shops may be everywhere, but we don’t have to submit to their tyranny. We’re creatures of the mind, let’s use it.

Twenty-four hour underground

The Tube will run for 24 hours on New Year’s Eve, the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union has announced. Unions say a “groundbreaking” agreement has also paved the way for Tubes to run later every Friday and Saturday night. After months of detailed negotiations following the 24 hour strike in June, the RMT have finally endorsed the deal. It is part of a wider deal on working times that Bob Crow, head of the RMT, said "sets the standard for the industry". New Year revellers will be pleased to know they can party the night away before jumping on the Tube to get home.

No gherkins please, we're British

In a recent poll London-lovers passed over the more recent additions to the London skyline like the Gherkin and the Eye in favour of more classic example of architecture. The top two Landmarks in the poll were Big Ben and London Bridge. The Gherkin came in third with the Eye in fourth. The event caused some confusion at the BBC with their internet site mis-naming the Gherkin, The Erotic Gherkin.

Time for a shave young man

Ewan MacGregor will take on the role of Sky Masterton, the charismatic gambler in Guys and Dolls, when the show comes to the West End. A young Marlon Brando once caused a sensation on Broadway in the same part and it is a meaty role for Ewan’s musical debut.

It's hard to believe the young man has never graced a stage musical, given his command performance in Moulin Rouge. Let's hope the supersmooth Masterton role inspires young Macgregor to lose his ridiculous 'gap year' beard.

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