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Frieze Still Pleases

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Pay �25 to see a floating squirrel and some surgical tools arranged neatly (and expensively) by Damien Hirst - it can only be one thing: the Frieze Art Fair is back in town.

Back for a seventh consecutive year in Regent's Park, Frieze played out its artistic soap opera for four days this October amid fears of the knock-on effect of the global financial crisis. The more sombre tone of the work supposedly reflected these testing times but, if you didn't know any better, it seemed business as usual for the most important fair in the art calendar.

Last year, at one of the many Frieze spin-off shows, a man dropped his trousers in the corner of a vast exhibition space at the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane and, unflinchingly, defecated. This apparent protest against the standard of art on display was viewed by many of those present as a piece of active art in itself. A considerable moment passed before the man and his deposit were both ejected from the premises.

There were no such malodorous displays of antagonism on offer at the Frieze this year, although a few less eye-catching impromptu acts were staged: a suited man traipsed around playing the sound of a mosquito on a violin while in a Portuguese gallery space a "visitor" showed up a few times every day, took his shirt off and promptly headed for the exit.

As usual there were pieces of work from the art world's leading luminaries. Grayson Perry gave the old art of tapestry a modern twist with his gigantic Walthamstow Tapestry; Gilbert and George provided a piece celebrating their ubiquitous duality; Tracey Emin's crudeness shone through with a vulgar pink neon sign which said "My c*** is wet with fear"; a trademark Anish Kapoor concave disk boasted a price tag of �450,000 (yawn) while Hirst's perplexing knack of designing the emperor's new clothes was yet again present with his large steel cabinet of surgical tools (priced, rather offensively, at �2.45 million).

All in all, more than a thousand artists showcased their work to 60,000 visitors with 165 galleries represented from 30 different countries worldwide. With 20-30% slashed off prices since the market plunged last year, Frieze 2009 had been met with certain trepidation. The difficult financial climate was reflected in the absence of 13 top US galleries who failed to take up their space; to compensate, a new section of the fair called "Frame" was set up to champion less established artists.

It is these artists who are really feeling the pinch of the credit crisis. Forget your Hirsts and Emins - there will always be a market for those trumpeted by the establishment, deservedly or not - it's the lesser known (and often more talented) younger cluster at the bottom of the food chain whose work is taking a knock. A close artist friend of mine sold a picture for �35,000 a couple of years back - now he's making ends meet by peddling sketches for �300 to friends and family to use as wedding presents.

Frieze has always been just as much about the spectacle as it is the art. No one in their right mind would pay �25 to enter (�27 if you book online) if it was simply to view what is essentially a glorified jumble sale. Most of the experience comes from the physicality of the place and the people-watching. Mortal visitors spend the whole day getting a glimpse of a world from which they are largely excluded for the other 364 days of the year.

There were, of course, some excellent works amongst the drivel. This year, the new sculpture garden was a treat (and free) while, inside, who could fault the magnetically floating stuffed red squirrel? A 16mm-film video installation by French multi-disciplinary artist Cyprien Gaillard was rewarding for those who bothered to sit through the repeated eerie musical loop and British painter Dawn Mellor's warped pictures of monsterified celebrities certainly caught the eye.

Frieze, of course, is not the place to go if sniffing out a bargain. In the same week, the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea Park displayed work priced between �50 and �3,000 while the Zoo Art Fair made a successful debut at its new home in a former Victorian warehouse on Shoreditch High Street.

Fairs remain essential viewing for all echelons of the art world and despite its hefty entrance fee, Frieze still tops the list. The Guardian's art critic Adrian Searle summed it up perfectly: "I try and encourage young artists to go to art fairs. It's a bit like toilet training - you need to know where your sh*t ends up."

Talking of sh*t, October also saw the opening of Hirst's long-awaited Blue Paintings exhibition at the Wallace Collection. To be blunt, Hirst's 25 pictures (largely of skulls set against ash trays, flower pots or lemons) are beyond terrible. The audacity of Hirst to present his one-dimensional monstrosities under the same roof as the museum's Old Masters is as baffling as the man's success. His popular installations and sculptures may have made him a household name but these pictures first and foremost show us that Hirst's efforts to reinvent himself have been in vain because, put simply, he cannot paint. Maybe the problem is that, this time, he couldn't get a vast team of helpers to do them for him.

Another respected art critic, Jonathan Jones, claimed that Hirst's exhibition "reveals the most successful artist of our time to be a tiny talent, with less to offer than even the most obscure Victorian painter in the Wallace Collection."

Collectors will still open their wallet for a piece of Hirst, whose disproportionate fortune is beginning to leave the same sick taste in the mouth as the bonuses earned by bankers (the kind, admittedly, that keep the art world - the only Ponzi Scheme left in town - afloat). Apt, then, that Frieze's sponsor for a sixth consecutive year was Deutsche Bank.

NFL Touches Down Again at Wembley

The New England Patriots beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 35-7 in the third annual regular-season NFL game in Wembley this weekend. Now the boss of NFL UK has said he aims to stage four American Football games a season in London by 2012. Any proposals to expand further will have to be approved by the 32 team owners at a meeting in February. The obvious logistical headache involves the long-distance travel and time difference, which means participating teams need a week's break to recover following the game. But the latest sell-out instalment of the NFL in London was seen as a resounding success with players labelling the atmosphere as "unique" and a "privilege to experience".

From Russia With Love

More sport, and Arsenal midfielder Andrei Arshavin has spoken about his new life in London following his transfer from Zenit St Petersburg last January. The diminutive Russian said the weather is better than in his homeland and that his wife is very happy because "in London the shopping is the best". Speaking to The Telegraph, the 28 year-old revealed a love for British traditions but puzzlement towards some of its "crazy" culinary delicacies, most notably salads. "I like that you keep your history in Britain. You don't use your red telephone boxes but you keep them. But what does 'British food' mean? I heard about fish and chips but I do not eat it. I heard about ales - a special drink like beer but without gas! I've not tried it. And what is porridge? When you eat salad in Russia there are lots of cut tomatoes, cucumbers and a few leaves. Here, it's the opposite! Lots of leaves and one cut tomato and two slices of cucumber."

No Return for 'Jedi' Tube Worker

The self-confessed "easy-going Jedi" Transport for London employee caught on video abusing a member of the public has apologised and resigned after being caught up in a national storm. Iain Morbin called an elderly man a "jumped up little git" and a "little girl" before threatening to "sling him under a train". The long-haired customer service assistant at Holborn Tube station also asked: "Why don't you go and walk under a bus?" The victim is understood to have done nothing wrong. Mayor Boris Johnson said he was "appalled" by the video footage, which has received thousands of hits on YouTube. Following an inquiry, TfL announced that Mr Morbin had apologised and handed in his resignation for personal reasons.

Posties Strike a Chord

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

On this the most unproductive day of the year, it's nothing short of a miracle I'm getting anything done at all (I just hope the boss isn't reading this).

It's official: Monday, 26th October is the least productive day of 2009, a phenomenon put down to workers' morale being hit by darker evenings with the clocks going back on Sunday. If you've been watching David Attenborough's excellent Life series on TV, I'm sure you'll agree that hibernation is looking like an appealing option. Yes, it's at this time of year that I plug in the SAD alarm clock and look forward to a winter of sun sets at 4.30pm.

But back to getting nothing done today; whenever I'm looking for an excuse not to work (the dog ate my homework� the tube was down� there was too much snow/leaves/sun - you know the kind of thing), I always turn to the Idler for some pearls of justification. After all, Tom Hodgkinson has made a very successful living out of doing as little as possible.

Helpfully, Tom and his team have posted just what I'm looking for on the internet - an announcement from the UN, no less, that over two million people every year die from work-related causes. That's just the excuse I need to have a Kit Kat and put the pen down. Well, we wouldn't want to risk a repetitive strain now would we?

The hazards of work can result in a more serious injury than a strained muscle. We need only look at the current post strike to see how stressful work concerns can get. Hearing about the stresses suffered by workers at France Telecom - resulting in 24 killing themselves in the last 19 months - my thoughts turned to the trauma for those poor postal strikers.

Despite having to re-order missing cheques and DVDs lost in the post (which reappeared again two weeks later), I can sympathise. 'Modernisation' in a recession can only mean one thing: job cuts. Then the Royal Mail bosses go and hire 30,000 temporary staff to do their jobs for them. But as that would be illegal it's dressed up as extra staff "to cope with the demand over the festive period". The advice - post your Christmas cards early this year. Presumably, that goes for all your online present buying too.

At the other end of the scale we've got the city bankers and their bonuses. The drama is hotting up as MPs demand the evil bonus-toting bankers stop rewarding themselves such obscene payouts. (This while their own self-created expenses scandal is still smoking.) All sorts of strange people have waded in on the subject, Prince Andrew included.

It's no surprise that he's on the side of bankers. What's more surprising is that he's prepared to go out on a limb about it. Keep quiet, Andy, and there'll be less chance of anyone noticing the �349,000 you spent (from the public purse) last year on trips and days out at the races. Still, nice work if you can get it.

Nose-to-tail dining moves into hotels

Fergus Henderson, the chef and co-owner of nose-to-tail Michelin starred restaurant St John in Smithfield, and his business partner Trevor Gulliver are set to open a hotel in central London. The site of the former Manzi's (the much mourned famous fish restaurant) is hidden behind scaffolding, hoarding and a big pig, the trademark of the St John. The prime spot just behind Leicester Square, opposite the old Swiss Centre (currently being rebuilt), will become the St John Hotel when it opens next summer. We're looking forward to something special from the 16-bedroom hotel which will include a two-bedroom top floor suite, a St John restaurant and first floor bar.

'Sex' Star in Private Lives Drama

It makes for a steamy sounding headline but the news is somewhat less insalubrious. Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall will be returning to the West End stage in the Noel Coward comedy Private Lives from 3rd March next year. The Liverpool-born feisty blonde will star opposite former Spooks star Matthew MacFadyen, aka Mr Darcy in the 2005 film Pride and Prejudice, at the Vaudeville Theatre. The production will be directed by Richard Eyre, director of the Royal National Theatre in London from 1988 to 1997 and whose recent projects include the film version of Notes on a Scandal, starring Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench. Sex and the City fans will be relieved to hear the film sequel of their favourite TV show is due to be released on 28th May 2010.

Punch Drunk

They've given us jelly in the shape of St Paul's Cathedral, a cloud of cocktail that you can breathe in and now food specialists Bompas & Parr are working on a punchbowl so large you can swim across it. Teaming up with Courvoisier, Bompas & Parr invite you to raise your glass when they reveal the enormous Architectural Punch Bowl at 33 Portland Place in December. But it's not just a case of pulling up a pew at the bar, instead you can row through the punch mix. If you've ever dreamt of taking a bath in champagne, this is your chance to go one step further. Look out for tickets to the Architectural Punch Bowl, on sale from mid November. Cheers!

A River Runs Through It

content@LondonTown.com — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

It's been a busy month for the Mayor, who travelled to his birth city New York to promote tourism to London and encourage foreign investment, before returning to the UK to find the Thames had disappeared.

Let's deal with Boris Johnson's bite of the Big Apple first - particularly because LondonTown were invited to share our opinions on the matter in a live phone-in discussion on LBC radio.

Standing in for LBC stalwart Nick Ferrari (radio's equivalent of the Daily Mail) was Kevin Maguire, the Daily Mirror Associate Editor known for his close ties to Gordon Brown and penchant for anti-Tory rumour-mongering. The main gist of the debate was whether Boris was the right person to be promoting London and whether or not London, a world-famous city, needed such promotion in the first place.

Speaking on behalf of LondonTown was Graham Ives, our managing development editor, who stressed that Londoners should never rest on their laurels when it came to promoting the city and that there was no reason why Boris should not be doing his part - in fact, we should all be doing our bit.

The trip to Manhattan was Boris's first major chance to promote himself on the international platform since his Olympic flag-waving debacle - so it was unfortunate that his visit coincided with New York Fashion Week (can you picture anyone as sartorially antiquated and outmoded as our current Mayor?).

Boris's detractors pointed at the former Conservative MP for Henley-on-Thames' critical stance on his predecessor Ken Livingstone's expensive overseas trips during last year's election campaign. But this argument had no legs seeing that British Airways and Michael Bloomberg, Boris's counterpart in New York, footed the bill for this junket.

Many City Hall opponents - such as The Guardian newspaper - claimed the trip (for which Boris and his small entourage were given four business class tickets aboard BA) questioned the Conservative commitment to cutting unnecessary CO2 emissions. But seeing that aeroplanes are the most likely source of transport that will bring more business into our city - and that the upshot of Boris's trip was a tourist agreement between London and New York - we'll let this one slip too.

Amongst other things, the deal struck between both mayors will see the cities provide one another with advertising space on public transport - and after the recent travails of the global financial crisis Boris left New York declaring London had "re-opened for business". As Graeme made clear on LBC, we here at LondonTown never knew it had "closed" in the first place.

Back in Blighty, and hardly had Boris had time to give even a passing thought to the upcoming advertisement campaign when he was distracted by a problem closer to home: the disappearance of the Thames. Apparently the old tube maps - based on a classic design drawn up in 1933 - were "too cluttered" and so someone came up with the novel idea of simply pretending the river wasn't there.

If draining one of the city's most famous landmarks wasn't enough, the TfL goon responsible thought it would also be worth removing both the fare zone system and the station index from the posters. Boris reportedly "hit the roof" on learning of the mistake, ordering that the river be "reinstated" at the earliest opportunity without incurring any further cost. For reasons unknown, it will take until December to change all the maps back to the old design - meaning people may end up getting lost or paying higher fares on a transport network which saw passenger journeys drop 6.4% in August.

The upshot: Boris was praised by many for his swift and passionate action in protecting part of London's tradition and heritage. But was it more a case of a red-faced Mayor moving to mop up a botched and bungled job? Surely such a blunder should never have got so far in the first place - and seeing that Boris stands at the top of the TfL tree, should he not take the flak, however unfair that may seem?

Still, the whole episode provided some great soundbites. Taken out of context, you would never have expected to hear this gem from City Hall: "The overwhelming public reaction is that the Tube and Thames should be reunited, so that's exactly what we will do." It's almost as funny as the darkly ironic news that Boris's transport Czar, the exotically named Kulveer Ranger, is wanted by Georgian authorities for his hand in a motorcycle crash which saw a pedestrian break a leg. Pull the other one...

Boris keen for pay-as-you-go

Mayor Johnson's trip to New York also gave him some food for thought regarding the "voluntary" admission fees policy conducted by the Big Apple's top museums. On returning to London, Boris said he believed free museums such as the V&A should recommend an entrance fee in the same way that New York's Met suggests a $20 (�12) donation. US national museums are officially free but visitors must still queue at the ticket desk where they often feel compelled to give a donation. This philanthropic policy impressed Boris, who said: "I think we should do it". Entrance fees to national museums in London were scrapped in 2001, leading to a 70 per cent increase in visitor numbers in the first year.

Rise and fall of the Hackney Empire

Sad news broke this month that financial irregularities will force the famous Hackney Empire to close for nine months in the New Year. The newly-refurbished, 108-year-old, Grade II listed venue will close its main hall after the panto season wraps in January, and won't open its doors again until October 2010 - meaning an ominous hiatus in its popular music, theatre and comedy nights (such as the annual New Act of the Year competition for stand-up comedians). New chief executive Claire Middleton, just one month into her role, called the closure a "period of reflection" - a novel way to describe redundancies for the majority of the East London venue's workforce. Amid much tension, there are fears that London's flagship variety theatre may never open its doors again.

Prepare the papal purple

The Pope is set to visit London in 2010 and could well stay in Buckingham Palace. No, this isn't the premise for the next Dan Brown blockbuster, but a distinct reality after Prime Minister Gordon Brown extended a formal invitation to Pope Benedict XVI for a six-day trip to the UK next year. It will be the first papal visit to Britain since Pope John Paul II's celebrated jaunt back in 1982. It is not yet known exactly where and when the pope will visit although Mr Brown dropped a hint that it would be during summer time after he promised the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church "the warmest of welcomes".

Blogging is Best

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Blogging is the hip new thing. OK, so it might not be brand new - officially ten years old this month, it's ancient in internet terms. And it's hardly exclusive - anyone can (and does) do it: there are 10 million active users on the Google-owned Blogger alone. But a clutch of high profile bloggers have recently been getting much mileage out of their cyber writing skills.

I'm thinking in particular of the diminutive 13-year-old fashion blogger, Tavi Gevinson, hailed as "the true star of New York Fashion Week" by The Guardian. The barely-a-teenager went down a storm skipping school for front row seats at all of New York's hottest shows, having her picture taken alongside hipsters like Katie Grand. Hell, even Vogue blogged about her blog.

Special mention also goes to the Los Angeles Times journalist Booth Moore who tweeted from London Fashion Week that London is the only place you'd see someone walk out of the gym in sweaty clothes and directly into the pub. But of course. And being a Pret addict (every lunchtime, without fail) I especially liked her lament at the lack of a Pret A Manager in LA.

If further proof that blogs are big right now were needed take a look at the cinema listings. Out this month is Julie and Julia, a film based on the book based on a blog detailing one woman's quest to cook Julia Child's (think Delia Smith) recipes - at a rate of (almost) one a day for a year. I'm thinking Sadie's Column is a catchy title for a book deal/film script (well, if a school girl can do it...).

So, in my quest to take my blog further than this here webpage I thought it only right to invest in a Burberry coat. Why? What possible relevance could this have to writing, you may well ask. A cold snap in the office, is it? Not exactly. In the interests of creating the best blog ever - all film/book deals welcome - this week's column is dedicated to the hottest ticket in town: London Fashion Week. And the indulgent designer jacket purchase? It's in honour of Burberry's return to LFW, of course. Any excuse, really.

This season, Burberry ditched Milan for London as LFW celebrated its 25th anniversary. And it wasn't the only top designer to reappear for the landmark birthday. Matthew Williamson also returned to London, having shown in New York for the last five years (except for a one-off show in London in 2007 for his label's 10th anniversary, celebrated with a little help from Prince and marked by a dedicated solo show at the Design Museum). Williamson didn't disappoint with a dazzling show, celebrity studded audience and enough sequins to keep all the Strictly Come Dancing contestants in costumes for the entire series.

There was a strong showing from best of British labels like Vivienne Westwood, Paul Smith, Luella and Twenty8Twelve (aka Sienna and Savannah Miller) who all helped celebrate 25 years of London Fashion Week. The patriotic vibe was upheld by a black, grey and white union jack fluttering over LFW's new home at Somerset House. But the whole of London was catwalk as shows took place at venues as various as Claridges' ballroom, Lawrence Hall at the Royal Horticultural Halls and, erm, a disused dairy in Bloomsbury.

London was very much the inspiration for Sienna Miller - a girl almost as much in love with the city as I am - who was heard saying: "My biggest inspiration is driving through London, people really aren't afraid to be themselves here. It's a really inspirational place to live and design in." Hmm, maybe it's because she's a Londoner...

Adding to the glitz and glamour were the A-list-attended after parties - equally as important as the catwalk action. Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue, hosted a party at Le Caprice while Sir Philip 'Top Shop' Green took over The Ivy for a dinner attended by Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Kelly Brook and Anna Wintour, editor of US Vogue. Wintour, usually a notable absence at LFW, watched Christopher Kane's show - whose ex-employee, Donatella Versace, was also in the audience, which just goes to show exactly how brightly his star burns in the fashion firmament right now.

The 27-year-old designer revealed his gingham Lolita-inspired, sexy yet innocent collection and stole the show with journalists variously hailing it as "the one nobody can bear to miss" (Vogue), "breathtakingly sophisticated" (The Times) and "both wholesome and fierce" (WWD).

Another young designer making the headlines was Canadian Mark Fast who waded in on the thorny issue of models' sizes. In an attempt to prove that his body-conscious (ie leaves you feeling hideously self-conscious) clothes could be worn by anyone - not just the usual model types - he sent three size 12-14 models down the catwalk.

Fast made all the headlines but he was one of eight designers chosen for All Walks Beyond the Catwalk, a Friday night show at Somerset House backed by the British Fashion Council and organised by Caryn Franklin to promote models of all sizes. Something I hope we see more of.

The debate continues as to whether he proved his point or not (I can't say that loosely knitted dress on a 'normal' sized girl had me rushing out to buy one) but it's good to see some curves on the catwalk. Seriously, if you saw one of the rake-thin catwalk models in the street you'd stop and stare, not at their captivating beauty but because - with gangly limbs, jutting hip bones and exaggerated height - they simply don't look like everyone else. It's a shame designers don't design for 'normal' people but at least some are prepared to speak out on the subject.

There's no disputing Fashion Week is a kind of madness. Frocks, flesh and fabulousness flashes past in a whirlwind week, punctuated by what feels like eternal periods of waiting around for shows to begin. All that aside, there's a madness to the inaccessibility of it all - the top designer gear is out of reach, price wise, for most mere mortals with statement pieces costing thousands of pounds.

But its importance is in the trickle-down effect. Who can forget that brilliant line in The Devil Wears Prada when Meryl Streep tells Anna Hathaway's character where the exact shade of green her rather ordinary M&S type jumper originated from. And the high street fashion stores and supermarkets are completely shameless about their rip-offs of the most on-trend designs hitting the shops at knock-down prices, er, right about now.

The designers themselves are also on-hand to help us get with the latest gear - even if we can't afford couture - helpfully creating diffusion lines. This year, Williamson's collection for high street store H&M sold out and he also does an on-going line at Debenhams which is brilliant for this kind of thing - Jasper Conran, John Rocha and Ben de Lisi are just some of the others I always look out for in their Oxford Street store. TK Maxx is another good tip for all you bargain hunters out there - top names like Alexander McQueen, Luella and Armani are all stocked at brilliantly discount prices. Oh and that Burberry jacket? Confession time: TK Maxx for �69.99, you can't wrong.

Going to the Dogs

The Save Our Stow campaign opposing the much-lamented loss of greyhound racing at Walthamstow Stadium following its closure last year is showing signs of success. Local newspaper Waltham Forest Guardian reports that 'behind the scenes' talks have seen "progress between the owners and potential buyers". The track was one of the last bastions of a very British way of life, the charms of which have been captured in a photographic exhibition charting the last three months before the stadium closed. The exhibition at Vestry House Museum is complemented by once-a-week screenings of 'Just Another Day', a documentary about the track on The Big Screen in Walthamstow town square, shown every Friday from 12.30pm to 1pm until 2nd October.

Tube Travel Numbers Down the Tube

The news this week that commuters made 190,000 fewer journeys a day in August - the largest drop since the late '80s - came with a thinly veiled threat of above-average fare increases. Groan. Never mind the fact that London already has the most expensive tube system in Europe with its �4 cash fare for a single journey in the city centre. Amid talk of 'tough choices', 'reduced revenue' and 'huge pressures on our budget' mayor Boris Johnson couldn't resist a pop at former mayor Ken Livingstone saying: "We are still paying the price for those decisions". Transport for London blamed the recession and job cuts.

National Theatre set for �50 Million Makeover

Plans are afoot to redesign and improve the National Theatre with �50 million earmarked for the "very ambitious plan" in the words of artistic director Nicholas Hytner. Improvements are intended "to open the building up" and include a learning and participation centre as well as a new foyer and bar. The scheme will also feature environmentally friendly, energy saving elements. Architects Haworth Tompkins have been tasked with the sizeable project, the firm already responsible for the modernisation of the National Theatre Studio which re-opened in November 2007. The Young Vic and the Royal Court theatres in London are also their work and judging by these - and the theatre bars in particular - the revamped National will be something to look forward to.

When Saturday comes

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0100

It's early days in the 2009/10 football season but already Tottenham, Chelsea and Arsenal occupy the top three places in the Premier League table.

Symbolically, both Manchester clubs, United and City, lie in 4th and 5th place, underlining the North-South divide that has seen London clubs take tentative pole position after three games.

Of course, we're all used to seeing the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea towards the summit, but this is fresh territory for Spurs, serial underachievers and the capital's most unsuccessful side last year.

Rewind 12 months and Spurs under Juande Ramos were rooted to the bottom of the League after a terrible opening; one year on, and Harry Redknapp is presiding over the team's best League start since 1960 - the year Spurs were last crowned champions. Granted, the chances of history repeating itself are pretty unlikely - sorry Spurs fans! - but it must give some light relief to a sorry section of London's population usually so glum come 5.45pm on a Saturday afternoon.

Across the North London divide, rivals Arsenal are enjoying an equally resplendent start to the campaign. At the time of writing, the Gunners have played just two League matches, but are sitting pretty in third place with a mammoth goal difference of +8. Not bad for a so-called weak and inexperienced side written off by most journos at the start of the season after selling two of their star players to the oil-rich financial force that is Man City.

I was at Arsenal's first home game of the season last Saturday as the Gunners welcomed pointless Portsmouth to the Emirates Stadium. The match was a rather subdued affair, with Arsenal's free-flowing artists making they whole thing seem like a training exercise as they cantered to a 4-1 demolition of the struggling South coast outfit.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the day was, in fact, the rolling out of a new club policy of "Arsenalisation" which saw every fan given a red and white scarf in a bid to inject a bit more oomph into the habitually staid confines of the Emirates.

Now Arsenal fans have never been renowned for their bellowing chants, and while calling former home 'The Highbury Library' was a bit harsh, it was certainly no Anfield or Celtic Park. But compared to Emirates, however, the intimate, contained Highbury was a veritable caldron of cacophony.

Such is the open design of the club's current 60,000+ capacity stadium, which was opened in July 2006, any noise generated by the home fans is usually lost to the leafy Islington air. Given the fact that most Gooners prefer to sit back and enjoy their team's silky movement in silent contemplation of its existential merits, the place is as quiet as a mausoleum. On Saturday - as is the case most match days - even the 1,000-odd away fans were more vocal.

This isn't helped by the apparent disunion in the stands or by the central 'club class' ring of seats - you know, the ones which usually empty five minutes before the start of half-time and only fill back up well into the second period.

(The reason for this, by the way, is quite clear: club class spectators get free drinks during the break, which are laid out on tables in the surrounding lounge. The earlier you leave, the better chance you have of picking up a full glass which, incidentally, you can refill, free of charge, at the bar afterwards - explaining in turn the late filling up of seats as the second half gets under way.)

Club bigwigs believe that what the Emirates needs is an injection of all things Arsenal, a bit of soul in an otherwise soulless stadium. They have commissioned 12 'greatest moments' murals to spruce up the outside walls of the concrete edifice and have lined up a whole series of installations and visuals to remind fans of the illustrious achievement of their club and its players.

Inside, a trademark white cannon has been daubed onto the stand opposite the tunnel while the legendary Highbury clock is set to be installed. Laying more than 60,000 scarves on seats throughout the stadium was another bid to trigger the emotive capacity of supporters.

If I was being Devil's Advocate I'd say that the fact that the club hierarchy feels the need to go to such drastic measures to whip up a sense of community spirit amongst fans underlines the uphill struggle they're going to have. Put simply, if you have to create an atmosphere by giving people scarves then perhaps the club is never going to have that good an atmosphere at all. (It can't help matters much when your stadium is named after a Middle Eastern airline either.)

What's more, if you have no qualms about creating a word for such measures - Arsenalisation - and discuss it openly on your club website, as if it were a blend of mathematics and science where you add A to B to get C, then you're clearly bordering on the delusional.

Back on the pitch, Arsene Wenger's unbeaten side face Man United this Saturday in the season's first clash between two of the League's traditional 'Top Four' clubs.

Being at Old Trafford, the atmosphere should be pretty special - but if Arsenal do manage to maintain their 100% record then it will do the whole Arsenalisation bid a world of good. For the only way Arsenal are going to create a new community spirit amongst supporters is by giving them something to cheer about.

It's no use harking back to the glory days of Highbury and the Invincibles. The reality is that there is no history so far at the Emirates except one of emptiness and underachievement. Only the players can change that.

Thuggery mars derby clash

Say what you like about the sterility of the Emirates, but it's surely better than its polar opposite. The spectre of hooliganism rose once more to the surface of English football during a midweek Carling Cup match between London rivals West Ham and Millwall. These "planned" scuffles, which saw more than 100 fans trade blows and throw bricks and bottles, appeared to have been caused by people without tickets to the game. But the nasty scenes spilled onto the terraces with a series of pitch invasions by the home fans following their goals in the 3-1 extra-time win. One 44-year-old man was stable in hospital after being stabbed in the chest in a night which needed 200 officers in full riot gear and 20 mounted policemen to quell the violence.

Stealing the town jewels

You wait an age for a good old-fashioned jewellery heist and then, like the proverbial bus, two come along in quick succession. Just two weeks after a couple of be-suited men audaciously made off with �40m worth of jewels from New Bond Street jewellers Graff, a mob of six men on motorbikes launched a smash-and-grab on a Knightsbridge jeweller stealing gems worth more than �1m in just one minute. Three men have been charged in connection with the Graff robbery - Britain's biggest jewellery heist - although the two men caught on CCTV are still at large (presumably drinking daiquiris on a beach in Mexico). Coincidentally, the previous largest jewellery heist in the UK was a �23m robbery at the same shop in 2003. Talk about lightning never striking twice.

Busking for Boris

Commuters can allay their anger that the on-going weekend work on the Jubilee Line might run well over schedule into 2010 with news that the standard of busking on the London Underground network is set to improve thanks to an X Factor-style play-off between young musicians in front of mayor Boris Johnston. Buskers aged 16-25 have already posted their recordings online as they bid to win 20-minute slots at seven stations. At the end of the month the 20 buskers with the most votes will be whittled down to 10 by a panel of judges before a special "busk-off" in front of Boris. While it's hard to see Boris dismiss floundering acts with the same acerbic bile as Simon Cowell, it's distressing to think that the blond buffoon might have a say on what we listen to while making those annoying diversions owing to the Jubilee Line closure�

Bring on the Bikes

content@LondonTown.com — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0100

As anyone who has ever cycled through Richmond Park or down the Thames path knows, London is better by bike.

Even if you don't have your own Brompton, by this time next year we'll all be able to see the city from behind the handlebars of a bike. Yes, Londoners, the good news announced this month is that we will get our very own bike hire scheme - along the same lines as the hugely popular V�lib in Paris - next summer.

An even better comparison is Montreal's BIXI scheme - who've been sub-contracted to supply the bikes and docking stations. TfL announced it has awarded the contract to Serco who already run the Dockland's Light Railway and the Woolwich Ferry as well as looking after the traffic signs for Transport for London. Serco has teamed up with BIXI and if the Montreal model is anything to go by, we can hire bikes for around �3 for 24 hours, subscribe for a month or a year, and lock them up in a different location from where we started.

Details of the London scheme already revealed indicate there'll be 6,000 bicycles available to hire at 400 cycle stations, all within Zone 1, an area covering approximately 44km squared. A total of 10,200 docking points should ensure users can return bicycles to the docking point they want to. This all sounds very sensible.

No doubt helped by the fact that 'Boris Loves Bikes' (he turned up to cut the ribbon of the relaunched and uber upmarket Langham hotel looking slight wind swept from his bike ride there), there's a major push on biking from the powers that be. Their aim is to increase cycling in London by 400 per cent by 2025 (compared to 2000 levels). That's good news for anyone who wants to see more cycle paths, better bike parking and more inspired ideas such as the bike hire scheme.

Another annual biking highlight is coming up next month. The Mayor is hosting the London Skyride (formerly the Freewheel) on Sunday 20th September, when the roads around central London will be closed off to cars and thousands of cyclists replace petrol with pedal power. It's free but you need to sign up if you want to take part. I've got my place already.

More good news comes in the shape of planned Cycle Superhighways due to open next year and set to improve commuter routes from outer to central London. The first two routes, due to open in May 2010, will run from Barking to Tower Gateway and from South Wimbledon to Bank. By the end of 2012 a total of 12 clearly marked, easy-to-use routes will link up the suburbs and the city.

I'm a lady who likes to bike but I must admit an aversion to the prevalence of Lycra that seems to occur among those who take cycling seriously. There's really no excuse to wear quite such tight fitting, shiny fabrics - 40-something men, take note.

Seems I'm not the only to take offence. Just lately, The Observer ran a cycling special, with the focus on bikers who "wouldn't be seen dead in Lycra". Some had taken this abhorrence of stretchy sportswear so far that they would prefer to wear, well, nothing at all. This year's World Naked Bike Ride in London saw 1,000 people peddling through the city's streets with nothing but their bike helmets - or perhaps some body paint - on. Quite a sight when you're innocently walking down Oxford Street, expecting nothing more outrageous than some serious bargains at Top Shop.

The Sunday newspaper feature also introduced me to the brilliant CycleChic.co.uk gals. These plucky women have some excellent advice on how to travel on two wheels while avoiding anything skin tight, (thank you, thank you). With their useful website blog and shop they have proved that you can look stylish and cycle at the same time.

Encouraged by friends who've been serious about cycling for five years and more, I've invested in a lovely Giant mountain bike which lives in my spare room (too precious to leave on the street). I like to take a leisurely bike ride around Richmond Park, and sometimes pluck up the courage to brave out-of-city off-road tracks.

But these friends have taken cycling one step further. They've reached new levels of biking enthusiasm and have left me far behind in terms of kit, investing in not one but three types of bike - mountain, road (essential for triathlon training, they say) and now the latest love, a fixie. Not cheap, mind. Their growing bike families cost an average of �1,000 for a 'decent' bike. But they're happy to spend their hard-earned cash in this way. Once you've got the biking bug, it seems, you're hooked. No matter if you're forced to buy a bigger house to put a roof over all that expensive kit.

I'm not quite at that level of obsession yet, nor have I mastered the daily commute by bike - I'm more of a fair weather cyclist with a healthy fear of brutal red buses bearing down on me. So it's good to see the lovely people at Transport for London and the London Cycling Campaign have come up with a solution for wobblers like me. Cycle Fridays, running every Friday morning between now and October, give nervous novice riders the chance to be chaperoned into town by experienced cyclists who'll show you how to survive on the open road.

But if you really want to see how the professionals do it, mark Saturday 19th September in your diary - that's when the Tour of Britain comes to the streets of London. Starting from Whitehall, the final leg of the eight-day tour sees the best cyclists in the country speeding around London landmarks including Big Ben and the London Eye as they complete ten laps looping around the Tower of London. Now that's how to cycle in the city.

Broadway, The West End, Kingston...?

Dame Judi Dench is a national treasure - slightly above the Queen, as you occasionally get to glimpse her around the West End, y'know, when she's starring in something fabulous at the Donmar. But the actress is swapping the bright lights of Theatreland for the street lights of suburbia as she arrives at the Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames next year. In a theatrical coup, Dame Judi is starring as Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream in a theatre modelled on the original Elizabethan playhouse The Rose, all wrapped up by directing from the illustrious Peter Hall. The luvvies will go wild!

Lites go out at London Paper

Healthy competition between rival newspaper groups has been swept from London's streets by the closing of thelondonpaper. For three years, it has gone head-to-head with London Lite in a battle to thrust the day's (celebrity) news into the hands of unwilling commuters, who can pick up a copy of either - or both, if they get really desperate for reading material - on the Tube. The free sheets, and their persistent distributers, have become something of a London trait; they may just be something to dodge on your route home but, like red phone boxes, black cabs, Starbucks, they've become part of the furniture.

London rises from the Ashes

There were the Profits Of Doom (PODs) who were saying Australia could still do it, even though 546 runs - a record target - seemed an insurmountable task on the eve of the fourth day. But England's cricketers did do it, and oh what jubilation! Here, in London, England won the Ashes when an Aussie called Hussey (decent batsman, apparently) got caught out by Alastair Cook off the bowling of Graeme Swann, but details, details... it was time to party in the capital and if you couldn't get a beer around Kennington, 10,000 cricket fans (and some non-cricket fans) were going wild in Regent's Park - giant screen, boozy picnics, even some cricket nets to rival the professionals. And we thought cricket was a very proper, English game...

Against the Clock

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0100

This weekend just gone was given over to widespread anticipation of all things Olympic as London prepares for the games - with just three years to go. This is the biggest event in the city since the millennium celebrations and the whole world is watching to see if we can pull it off.

Let's just hope the 2000 celebrations aren't anything to go by. The landmark Millennium structures - The Millennium Dome, as was (now The O2), and Millennium Bridge - may be a great success today but these sizeable projects did take a little time to bed down. Neither was an instant success (the first commonly referred to as 'troubled', and the other wobbled) but, like a fine wine, both have improved over time.

Looks like we're better prepared for the far bigger budgeted Olympics (in the billions, not the Millennium millions) which, we have been reassured, is both on schedule and on target financially. No embarrassing half-finished stadiums are forecast at this stage. Remember Athens? A rushed job meant a city covered in dust and concerns about the stadium roof which just about went on in time. The New Acropolis Museum, a grand opening planned to tie in with the games in 2004, has only just happened - five years after the Olympic flame went out.

But the recent Olympics Open Weekend was all about generating good news and excitement around the forthcoming games. The highlight of the weekend for 150 lucky competition winners and their plus ones was a sneak preview inside the Olympic Stadium site which promted one visitor to describe the arena as having the "feel of the Rome Colisseum". The 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium 'bowl', the Zaha Hadid-designed iconic aquatic centre with its wave-shaped roof as well as all new permanent venues on the Olympic Park are now under construction.

More than 750 events were held nationwide to mark the three year countdown with the launch in London kicked off by the Barbican Young Orchestra and a stand-out performance by a brilliant young trumpeter. After two days of dance, art and plenty more cultural happenings people turned up for the weekend's finale: to watch a giant line of dominoes created out of concrete blocks being toppled along the 15-kilometre route through the five boroughs where the games will take place. The rectangular blocks were laid out across roads, parks and through an art gallery, running from Newham to the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich where an hour-long show signalled the end.

With �80 million committed to the cultural Olympiad, we can look forward to more treats like this with a programme of events, festivals, showcases and street theatre planned. The cultural offering designed to complement the sporting side of things started in 2008 with Martin Creed's Work No. 850 which saw runners pegging it up and down the Duveen gallery in Tate Britain. Further Open Weekends are planned each year until the games open and a programme of arts events will continue until a few days before the grand 2012 opening proving that it's not just the sports side that benefits.

One of the major projects closer to the time is a BBC-led music festival on the weekend of 21st and 22nd July 2012, a week before the opening ceremony, which sees five large-scale outdoor stages set up along the Thames, each featuring music and performing arts from different continents.

This weekend, as Lord Coe lined up for a photo op with ballerinas, Boris boarded the Olympic Javelin train from St Pancras to Stratford for its virgin journey (made it without a hitch in under seven minutes - why can't all tube journeys be like this?). Whether you love or hate the marmite-like London mayor you've got to admire his one-liners. His response to concerns that the stadium roof will only provide cover for two-thirds of the seats, leaving some spectators soaked? "Rumours of our wetness are greatly exaggerated."

Pop-ups Keep Cropping Up

Call it a silver lining of the recession, but we've notice there are all manner of pop-ups cropping up all over London. No sooner have we heard about a pop-up shop/art gallery/night club temporarily coming to town than it closes down again. In a city where there's something new happening every day it's hard to keep up. Take the Alternative Arts backed Portman Village Galleries - turning disused spaces in Seymour Place and Quebec Street into art galleries. And here's one pop-up to look out for (and plenty of warning to get there too): from 8th to 13th October Pierre Koffmann of La Tante Claire fame will be heading an all-star line-up at a short-lived restaurant on the roof of Selfridges - part of the Fay Maschler-backed London Restaurant Festival. Pop up and tuck in.

Stirling Work

Maggie's Centre in Hammersmith is one of three London buildings up for the Stirling Prize, the prestigious award given each year by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Kentish Town Health Centre by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris and Eric Parry Architects' 5 Aldermanbury Square, an 18-storey office block near the Barbican in the City, are the other two London hopefuls. Maggie's Centre is one of two entries by Richard Rogers' London-based practice, Rogers Stirk Harbour. (Has anyone else noticed that from the outside Maggie's looks like they left the builders' hoarding up?). But it's for their Spanish winery, Bodegas Protos near Valladolid, that Rogers Stirk Harbour is tipped to win. Tune in again on 17th October to find out.

Move Over Mr Whippie

An ice cream van turf war has broken out in the usually peaceful province of Primrose Hill, an area famous for its pleasant park and celebrity residents. Helen Tindale, 48, who sells organic ice cream from her Nice-Green Van was threatened with stabbing when she tried to sell her iced treats from her van on Regent's Park Road. This follows a previous attack in May when a 33-year-old ice cream seller was beaten up in Albert Terrace. We're sure Mr Whippie would not condone this kind of thing.

View for a thrill

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Should you ever get the chance to go to the top of one of the three Barbican towers then you'd be a fool not to take it up.

A perk of working for LondonTown.com is that people often phone up offering interesting excursions and activities around the capital. This month the call was from the City of London Corporation, who own and manage the iconic Barbican Estate, which houses more than 4,000 people in 21 separate blocks.

This July, the estate celebrated the 40th anniversary since its official opening - and what better place to cut the birthday cake and have a glass of champagne than at its highest point, the viewing platform of Cromwell Tower, one of the three 404-foot-high blocks that dominate the Cripplegate skyline?

So, up we went 40 floors in the lift one windy, slightly overcast morning. We - a group of journalists, photographers and Barbican residents / luminaries - then climbed through a few service rooms, up a narrow, steep staircase, before surfacing on top of the concrete, Corbusier-style carbuncle.

In between speeches, sipping Bubbly and devouring cake, we got the chance to meet John Dixon, one of the longest-serving residents of the Barbican. The 64 year old has occupied one of the lower penthouses since 1972 - a 37-year tenure which is only beaten by a pair of co-habiting brothers, both formerly majors in the army.

Dixon, whose soft, honeyed tones recalled those of Kenneth Williams, used to be a member of cabin crew aboard BA Concorde - a period he called "the best of my life". One of his many anecdotes included the time he was called in and reprimanded for being over-familiar with the passengers. "It was stupid," he said, "because Paul and Linda had told me explicitly not to use their surname in order to keep a low profile."

Being on the roof of Cromwell Tower certainly does have its advantages - you don't have to see the Tower itself, while the most westerly of the remaining Barbican skyscrapers, Lauderdale Tower, is entirely obscured by the middle column, Shakespeare Tower.

For despite the protestations of many, it must be said that London's tallest residential blocks are not the prettiest of sights. If the British Olympic fund was given a pound for every tourist wandering daily on the Southbank who thought "what are those grim eyesores yonder?" then the Games would be, um, around �100 cheaper.

Designed by the architects Chamberlain, Powell and Bon, the concrete towers, with their trademark jutting balconies, are seen by many as blotches on recent British architectural history. They may have a Grade II listed status, but let's remember that's for "brutalist architecture", which kind of says it all.

Like the much-maligned (but now puzzlingly-revered) 30-storey Trellick Tower in Ladbroke Grove - designed by a man so despised by Ian Fleming that his name was given to the Bond villain Goldfinger - the Barbican Towers are both the symbol of the modernist dream and the failure of the Corbusier ideal in one.

Still, architectural merits aside, it can't be denied that the view from the top is staggering, to say the least. On a clear day you can see from Hampstead Heath to Battersea Power Station, from the new Wembley Stadium to Canary Wharf - and all that's beyond and in between.

In the immediate vicinity, it's hard to picture the utter dereliction that occupied the site upon which the Barbican grew. The Blitz completely destroyed the 35-acre area to the extent that the living population of Cripplegate come 1951 was just 48. What you now see at the foot of these three giants is proof of life rising from the rubble, a purported sense of order without monotony.

Picking out the London landmarks from this immense vantage point is an insatiable activity in itself and while the spectacle is not as instantly rewarding as, say, the view from atop Centre Point, the fact that you are in the open air adds a certain frisson to proceedings. Being at such a height is certainly not for the faint-hearted but it is worth the fright if only for the alternative perspective afforded of the City (how else would you know that many of those swanky new buildings have lush gardens on their roofs?).

Of course, very few, if not any, of you will get the chance to carry out such an experience, but there are still many private buildings which the public can visit. For example, on the weekend of 19-20 September, Open House sees nearly 700 buildings in London that are usually closed to the public open their doors to visitors - free of charge.

Some of the interesting places usually on offer are Lambeth Palace, Lloyds of London, the Bank of England, the Channel 4 building, the Foreign Office, Portcullis House, Mansion House and most of the 100 or so City churches. The top floor of the Gherkin has been included in the past - although queues were four hours long.

Such opportunities are there for the taking and are what makes London such a special city to live in. Last June, during that incredible hot patch that has seemingly eluded us since, many of London's private squares and gardens were open to the public in a similar venture. For those who don't like heights, the chance to tread on ground usually reserved for private residents may seem more appealing than a one-way lift to the apex of Cromwell Tower. Personally, I enjoyed doing both.

Fantastic Mr Fox

American film director Wes Anderson - the man responsible for The Royal Tenenbaums and The Darjeeling Limited - will open this year's London Film Festival on 14th October with British film Fantastic Mr Fox. Shot in a London studio the animated comedy based on a Roald Dahl book is set in the UK and produced in the UK but voiced by American actors George Clooney and Meryl Streep - who are also expected at to make an appearance at the high profile two week film festival.

Battle of Trafalgar

The National Gallery's director Nicholas Penny is not impressed with the pedestrianised part of Trafalgar Square - the north section right outside his gallery door does tend to attract buskers and pavement painters. Apparently he preferred the days when it was flooded with traffic not cluttered with unsightly people. Antony Gormley's Fourth Plinth project hasn't done anything to improve the situation. "Would any of the grim generals and admirals on the surrounding plinths have approved?" Waldemar Januszczak asks in The Times. "Not one of them. It is the best reason for doing this." Tempting to add the disapproving Penny to the list.

Ode to a Poet

The Hampstead house where John Keats wrote some of his best-loved poems, including Ode to a Nightingale has reopened after almost two years of closure for restoration with funding from a Heritage Lottery grant. When Keats moved here in 1818 he met and fell in love with Fanny Brawne, the girl next door. Their affair, tragically cut short when the poet died at 25 years old, has inspired a new film by Jane Campion, Bright Star, due for release this autumn. The film, starring Ben Whishaw as Keats and Abbie Cornish as Fanny, has already won critical acclaim following its Cannes airing. Now you can visit the very bedroom where Fanny slept, one of the newly opened rooms at Keats House.

Let Them Eat Cake

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0100

It's a year of big birthdays in London - at least that's how it's being marketed judging by the deluge of press bumpf we've received here at LondonTown towers. I remember when birthdays were all about the cake, blowing out candles and presents but now it seems they're the new way of getting some free publicity.

First we had King Henry VIII's celebrations for the anniversary of his coronation - it's 500 years since the man with all the wives was crowned King. Next came Handel with a raft of concerts and events taking place all over town to mark the 250th anniversary of the great composer's death.

The entire West End is also blowing out some candles - 1415 to be precise. Evidently Joe in Marketing at the New West End Company has worked out if you add up all the retailers in Soho and surrounding streets you can work out that it's the West End's 1415th birthday in 2009. This is a bit of a stretch - not only have they bundled a bunch of shops together... the sum of their years doesn't even make a tidy round number.

Shops in and around Bond Street, Oxford Street and Regent Street include landmark stores like Selfridges (100 years old), M & S, Jaeger (both 125) and Hamleys (the daddy of them all at the grand old age of 250). Add them together and you get the arguably arbitrary figure of 1415.

Putting my cynicism aside, just for a moment anyway, I can appreciate that there's some marketing mileage in this. Birthdays are a time for happiness and laughter and we could certainly do with an excuse to celebrate - anything to distract us from the depressing financial / environmental / expenses (delete as applicable) headlines.

To tie in with the birthday theme the New West End Company has come up with a few 'presents' for anyone visiting the area. These range from free blue badge guided walks to cake - well, it is a birthday. The impressive architectural 5 foot by 5 foot sponge confectionary weighing in at more than 200 pounds came in a shape of a miniature West End, complete with a bendy bus cornering Oxford Circus where the cake was cut up into 1,415 pieces.

The Westbury hotel has also joined in, creating a special blend of leaves just for the occasion, to be enjoyed with sarnies, scones, cupcakes and - well, why not - a glass of bubbly.

Shoppers were also treated to a traffic-free day in May along the same lines as the pre-Christmas VIP day. A total of 500,000 shoppers descended on Oxford Street for what was billed as London's biggest birthday party to enjoy the free entertainment provided by West End stores and latest Hollywood release Night at the Museum 2 (why a sequel had to be made when the first was a flop I don't know).

Marks & Sparks celebrated their 125 years in style - and with a generous giveaway offering two million products for sale at 1p each. Grab them bargains while you can, shoppers! Jaeger's celebrations were of a more cultural kind with an exhibition London College Of Fashion's Fashion Space Gallery.

Meanwhile Sainsbury's is getting in on the act with their 'heritage' recipes to mark 140 years since their first store opened in London's Drury Lane. Their nostalgia food - Jamie's toad in the hole, anyone? - may be just the thing in these volatile times. Woolies may not have made it but at least these long standing stalwarts prove there's life in the high street yet.

Photo Sop

It seems our esteemed London mayor can now officially be accused of being a bit wet! Boris certainly looked the part as he strode into the River Pool in Lewisham - volunteering to help clean up the waters with bin bag in hand, clad in waders and rubber gloves - but he lost his footing in a dip in the riverbed and took a dip himself. Looking the part doesn't necessarily mean you're up to the job, does it Boris?

Sounds of the City

The drilling, car horns honking, the repetition of "Big Issue, Sir, Madam, Big Issue"; the hustle and bustle is all around us, but London is also a place of colourful and eclectic, bringing the city to life. To prove it London Sound Survey collects recordings of the din, ambience and voices of the capital, from buskers and market traders to birdsong and church bells. There's even a growing archive of descriptions documenting what the city sounded like in olden times.

High Maintenance

You wouldn't think MPs had much room to talk nowadays about funding repairs but apparently some are a bit miffed that Buckingham Palace is not managing its money effectively, accusing the royal household of withholding information. Ah-hem. Pot. Kettle. Black. They have suggested that the Queen make some more cash by throwing open the gates to let the public poke around in January while she's at Sandringham, but insist they're "not suggesting we turf out the royal family to let the tourists in". Riiiight!

Only Fools And Horses?

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0100

If you're going to organise a polo event in London then there's no more apt a venue than Fulham's affluent Hurlingham Club - which is precisely what the World Polo Association did one windy weekend this June.

Aimed at bringing polo to the people, the three-day World Series event showcased a more accessible version of the sport, mimicking the effect Twenty20 has had on cricket. Rules had been simplified, snazzy new filming techniques (including head cams and bird's eye shots) were employed, and a couple of 'appy chappy commentators prattled on hilariously during each of the games' "chukkas" (or periods, to you and me).

Despite these welcome changes, polo seems destined to retain its cachet of an elitist pastime for the posh - much like most equestrian sports - and there was indeed little on show to prove otherwise.

Writing a column in The Guardian on the Monday after the tournament, Harry Phibbs, a councillor for Hammersmith & Fulham, lived up to his surname by lauding the event as "for the many and not just the few". In Hurlingham Park, he saw "young and old, men and women, black and white, rich and poor" rubbing shoulders in their thousands in an "inspiring" display of "community spirit".

Funny that. I just saw predominantly white, upper-class Oxbridge types drinking a lot of Pimm's and Champagne and dressed as if they were on their way to Ascot. OK, slight exaggeration, but this wasn't exactly the racial and social melting pot that Mr Fibs described.

But is this a bad thing? Not in the slightest. The absence of ethnic and class diversity might be worrying had this been a football game or the Notting Hill Carnival, but let's not kid ourselves: this was polo, a sport for the most part unashamedly archaic and pompous in outlook (as further exemplified by the medieval jousting displays put on between games).

Granted, it would have been rather provocative to host the event in Hackney, but this was leafy Fulham - and in the shadow of one of London's swankiest members' sports clubs, the Hurlingham (where there's a 15-year waiting list).

The aim of the event was to put on a good show, generate town-dwellers' interest in a little-known country sport and lay the foundations for future similar events. As such, it was a total success. Polo In The Park may soon be as integral part of the summer calendar as Wimbledon, Royal Ascott and the Henley Regatta. What does it matter that it doesn't attract a broad, cross section of society? Few events do.

If a bunch of rich, genteel Labrador types want to get together and watch bejodhpured athletes thwack balls around on horseback, then what is the problem? At the same price of a cinema ticket, the lowly �10 entrance fee was hardly a deterrent to the lower classes - I just imagine it wasn't their cup of tea. But I don't imagine many of the horsey crowd quaffing bubbly in the Charles Heidsieck tent are frequent visitors to, say, the dogs at Walthamstow or an indie night in Dalston.

Like a magnet attracting iron filings, the World Series merely pulled together hoards of toffs in an area already renowned for its Barbours and blue blood. If it was a pudding, we'd be talking Eton Mess. But who's complaining? The White Horse, Aragon House and the Duke on the Green certainly weren't - it was business as usual for those Parsons Green pubs.

The only argument that could be levelled against the event was that it required the week-long closure of a public green-space. But with the WPA vouching �200,000 on improvements to the park then the whole community is set to benefit for the other 51 weeks of the year.

Prejudices aside, the actual event was a blast. My only experience of polo being scenes from Pretty Woman and articles in the Daily Mail about Prince William and/or Jordan, I never really appreciated its viciousness: mallets fly, horses cry blood, the ball is often hit well over head height, unseated riders plunge to the ground while, under the new guidelines, the most flamboyant of players seem to spend more time in the sin bin than a Springbok rugby forward.

With my press pass I had free reign to frolic in the paddock, chat to the (predominantly Argentine) horse dressers and lap up the pre-match atmosphere (Princess Beatrice and classical boy band Blake were the highlights). Ever-present was the striking former supermodel Jodie Kidd, the event's main fundraiser, who posed for pictures, gave interviews and generally came across as a good egg.

Jodie's brother Jack, a man who probably always wears red trousers and the WPA's director of polo, later lifted the trophy amid flames and a fanfare after his London team edged New York 9-8 in the final. The earlier third-place play-off saw a Moscow outfit devoid of Russians tame Buenos Aires 12-8 in a game which saw the long-haired Andrea Vianini shine. A part-time motorcar racer and full-time playboy, Vianini is the Cristiano Ronaldo of polo, and along with the delectable Kirsty Craig, is just the kind of face needed to pull in the punters.

It also helps having plenty of food and drinks tents, a wide range of shops and attractions on offer and a couple of cheeky Cockney commentators (the unsung heroes of the event) bringing the whole spectacle alive. And there was certainly a modicum of community spirit on display - especially when replacing the divots at half time and at the drunken after-party. It was just a very well-to-do, white community, that's all.

A Piece of Plinth Action

Ah, the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, a shrine to modern art, and, now, a podium for show-offs, campaigners and nutcases who all want their five minutes - or hour - of fame. The first 615 such people have been selected at random to partake in sculptor Anthony Gormley's "living monument" from 6th July, each getting an hour's slot in the public gaze. It sure is a tad wackier than the equestrian statue originally intended for the plinth.

Out of the Spotlight

Playing London is a highlight of any music tour (Britney even greeted a Manchester audience the other week with "What's up, London" - oops!) but what about no lights whatsoever? Indie-disco trio Friendly Fires plunged themselves and their audience into complete darkness at a gig under the arches at London Bridge, only briefly illuminating the stage with ultraviolet light to prove it was them. Apparently they wanted to strip away everything but the sound and let the audience feel the music... yeah, man!

Horror at Heathrow

Heathrow baggage handling does not get a good press, but they may just have 'bagged' themselves a pair of tickets and backstage passes to Alice Cooper's Theatre of Death tour - great if you like fake blood! The aging shock-rocker's bag went missing at the airport (Terminal 5, by any chance?) and he was rather keen to get it back, hence the lure of tickets. But the bag didn't contain his undies or even his golfing sweater but a collection of over 300 horror movies� material for the latest tour, we're guessing!

Come Rain Or Shine

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Oscar Wilde might have once written "Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative" but he never mentioned blogs. Like everyone in the capital, my return to work after the second May bank holiday was accompanied by heavy downpour. Following three days of hot sun, normal British service had resumed. But unlike most people who on that Tuesday morn returned to the office armed with umbrellas and clad in cagoules, I did so with a spring in my step.

Rain after a period of intense heat - and let's be frank, 25�c in London in May is nothing short of sweltering (not to mention just one degree less than in Malaga) - always freshens things up and can be rather invigorating. (Especially if you have a good umbrella - and the garish, rainbow-coloured wind-blaster I acquired on a recent trip to New York offers complete protection, while brightening up the day.)

It reminds me of playing cricket after a quick sprinkling, of hampered Wimbledon tournaments (held up but never defeated). Forget Wilde, for as the hardly unimaginative 19th century British social thinker John Ruskin once conversed: "Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."

And now the caveat: I was not even in London during the warm bank holiday. From my Dorset retreat - where I read the papers outside, took the dogs for walks, went for a run in the butter-cup tinged fields, drank cider in the beer garden of the local pub, masterminded two barbeques and managed 18 holes of golf (despite a fractured wrist) - I was getting regular updates from my housemate on the heatwave in SW6. Talk was of roof terrace usage, running in Bishops Park, a rugby sevens tournament, hanging out on the South Bank and successfully sealing a date (so probably best I was absent).

Despite my idyllic countryside frolics, I will admit to being a trifle envious - London in the sunshine is a breathtaking place. Its parks, lidos, open spaces, festivals, markets, riverside walks and outdoors events are unparalleled - even the biggest nit-picker would find it hard to moan.

This summer Sian Lloyd and the suits at the Met Office say we're in for a scorcher - about time too after the disappointments of the last three years. Our enjoyment of the capital, however, should not be solely dependent upon the weather - as my recent trip to New York highlighted.

I went there to visit our older sister and her boyfriend who have swapped Dalston for the Meatpacking District (a fair trade?) for a few months of painting (both are artists, alumni of the Royal Academy). Given London's superb weather this spring - just where were the April showers? - I expected a week of sun, shorts, strolling (and other things beginning with 's', such as, erm, steak).

What we got was pretty much a constant storm, made even more galling by the fact that NYC had just come out of mini heat-wave. The purchase of the aforementioned umbrella did alleviate matters a tad, but the general tone of the trip was lowered by the heavy drum of rain that accompanied our getting up every morning before hitting the tourist trail.

And yet I quickly realised there's nothing you can do about the weather and, short of embracing it, you must at least work with it. New York offered so much for us to do in the shape of indoors activities (the museums are staggering) while even a drenched walk around Central Park was still something to be cherished.

Why should London be any different? Visiting a foreign city you feel more inclined to jam-pack your days and see all the sights. But just because many of us living and working here see ourselves as Londoners, it doesn't mean we should switch off from the making a checklist of quirky places to visit and interesting things to do.

I like to think of cities as the setting for a vast computer game where I'm the main protagonist - like Zelda in the Kingdom of Hyrule if you will - and a digital camera my weapon of choice. Looking down on a plan of Paris, New York, Moscow or Barcelona is like holding up a treasure map; the weather is just another factor in my quest for exploration.

London should provide that same spark. I may have resided here for almost five years but I know full well that there's an unchartered mass out there ripe for the picking. Come rain or shine, there's a bottomless bag of events and locations - and as Wilde might say: only the unimaginative would get bored in such a city, even if it rains.

So, as I made my way to the tube this morning with my umbrella held high, I had that sense of excitement and expectation that I get in London ahead of the summer. Yes, it may be pelting down now, but it won't continue (in fact, it stopped this very afternoon). The forecast for the coming weekend is hot; I won't be in Dorset this time round; let the real-life computer game commence.

And if the weather turns bad again one weekend - as I'm sure it will do quite a few times between here and October - remember the inspirational words of Groucho Marx, who once harrumphed: "I'm leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it's not raining."

Not Up Sir Paul's Street

Who didn't have a sneaky peek at Google Street View when it launched to see their streets, houses, cars parked outside, next door neighbour's cat or even themselves, caught in the very act of leaving the building! But if you thought you could do a bit of reverse curtain twitching around London to peer into the front rooms of the rich and famous, then you'll have to get past with their security teams first. Sir Paul McCartney's St John's Wood townhouse has been removed from the site after he realised people could see the property from all angles. Maybe it just didn't catch it in the best light.

Flying High

You prepare for a lot of things at Heathrow: trying to squeeze your cosmetics or shaving kit into a tiny plastic bag before they'll let you through to Duty Free, lost luggage (to be expected) and the odd celeb throwing a strop / telephone (mentioning no names, Naomi Campbell). But a drunk pilot heading for a plane? Nope, that's not on our list of things to check before boarding! Luckily, the man-in-question was stopped and breathalysed before being let loose on the controls and American Airlines said it "has strict policies on alcohol and substance abuse". Well, that's something.

This Is (not quite) It

We don't need to ask whether Michael Jackson's first four O2 shows have been postponed because Jacko is wacko; that's pretty much par for the course nowadays. But it has left us pondering his reasons. The official line is that the King of Pop hasn't got enough time to rehearse, but the excuse that he's "a perfectionist" from AEG promoter Randy Phillips is wearing a little thin for fans who now have to wait eight months to see the show, called 'This Is It'.

Embarrassing Expenses

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 +0100

We've learnt more about MPs' moats, duck islands and their mortgage mix-ups than we can take on board in recent weeks. The MPs' expenses scandal revealed in 'The Telegraph' has seen reader numbers increase ten fold as the paper cleverly kept up the suspense - revealing one scandal a day for a whole week.

In a clear admission of guilt, some MPs offered to give the money back while others tried to justify their shady claims. The really bad ones (see moats, manure and swimming pool cleaning claims) really had no option but to slink away, shamefaced. Reverberations have seen calls for serious constitutional reform and heads are still continuing to roll. In the Conservative party, David Cameron has put guilty members of his party out to dry which, he's quick to point out, only highlights Labour's lack of action.

Even the existence of a 'second homes' allowance is news to me - I was clueless that us tax-payers were paying for MPs to lunch and (lavishly) furnish their second abode. And, on the whole, spending more than the average person to do so - nothing but John Lewis will do, it seems (well, they are 'never knowingly undersold').

London MPs' second homes were particularly problematic. Living close to Westminster, many of the capital's MPs can, arguably, commute from their first home and save tax-payers a ton of money. However, with the lines drawn as they currently are, many of those claiming second homes are perfectly within the rules, highlighting a system that can be 'played' or maximised by MPs with less than scrupulous morals.

Take health minister Ann Keen and her husband Alan, MP for Feltham and Heston - nicknamed Mr and Mrs Expenses. They maxed out the allowances available, buying an apartment on the South Bank while their primary residence lies a mere 30 minutes away by car in Brentford, West London. The Mail worked out that even if they had each separately taken a taxi ride (costing �38) from Westminster to Brentford on every Commons 'sitting day' last year, the bill would have only come to �11,000. This may sound like a lot in cab fares. But not when you consider that this would have saved �27,000 compared to what they claimed in living expenses that year.

Keith Vaz, a former minister who now chairs the home affairs select committee, is another culprit. He reportedly claimed �75,000 for a Westminster flat even though his family's home is just 12 miles away in Stanmore. His defence? It's all permissible within the rules.

Nepotism, too, came under the spotlight as it emerged that a surprising number of MPs - around 200 - employ members of their family to do their menial work at our expense. Sir George Young, MP for North West Hampshire, for example, employs his daughter Camilla is his office manager. And who could forget Derek Conway who was exposed for paying his son Henry to work for him - while he was miles away at university. Henry Conway seems to have done rather well out of this particular scandal - establishing himself as something of a posh boy-party organiser around town.

Others, by contrast, came away looking (or sounding?) squeaky clean - these are the ones who choose not to take the mickey out of a system with so many holes it could be Swiss cheese. David Burrowes, the Conservative MP for Enfield, Southgate, is one example. Being an outer London MP he could claim for second home allowance, but opted not to. "It can't be justified as a reasonable tax-payers' expense," he reasoned, adding, "and I prefer to go home to my family." Awww.

But the most excruciating performance arising from the expenses debacle came from the Speaker, Michael Martin - no stranger to expenses controversy himself - who stuttered his way through an agonising speech in the Commons. His far more succinct 30-second resignation speech followed soon after.

We're still waiting for the next instalment - what will the next day's newspaper announcements bring? Will Esther Rantzen take over as Speaker; or will Gordon be forced to call an early election? One thing's for certain, we can look forward to radical reforms of the inexcusably easy-to-exploit expenses system.

Taste of London

A greasy spoon is west London is an unlikely addition to the capital's tourist attractions. The Bridge Caf� stars in 'The Apprentice' as the place where "Britain's best business prospects" (apparently) go for a taste of reality. The message is that if they become the next in line to hear the words "You're Fired!" they could be swapping power lunches with Sir Alan Sugar for bacon butties in Acton! We know where we'd rather be - put the kettle on boys!

Pink and the Mob

Word was out at LondonTown.com Towers that the latest 'flash mob' event (it loses a bit of street cred when it's filmed for a certain mobile phone company advert) was taking place in Trafalgar Square and we deserted our desks in favour of karaoke with a 13,000-strong crowd. Renditions of 'Hey Jude', 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' and 'Summer Nights' filled the air but the element of surprise was US star Pink popping up to do a turn.

Curtain Up and Camera Rolling

It was only a matter of time before the light bulb switched itself on in the minds of telly producers and they realised that reality television had never really gone (literally) backstage at a London theatre. The Royal Ballet famously let the cameras go behind the scenes and many a musical star has been thrown into the spotlight of a West End show in the name of television, but the Theatre Royal Haymarket is the latest subject of fly-on-the-wall documentary. Apparently the show will be focusing on "the fabric and management of the theatre" but we bet they're really hoping to find some skeletons in the props cupboard!

New Designs on Old Fossils

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0100

It's been a month of large numbers. Millions and billions have been replaced by talk of trillions now. World leaders meeting in the capital for the G20 summit created headlines with their one-trillion-dollars-to-end-global-recession announcement.

Just a couple of weeks later we had Alistair Darling's budget� Ah, yes, the 'borrowing' budget. More billions upon billions... This time, its our national debt which is set to escalate to �1.4 trillion over the next five years. It reminds me of the school playground: "my dad's a million, trillion, billion, squillion times better than your dad".

Putting aside the government's "worst-in-peacetime-history budget" for a minute, and ignoring that fact that Britain is facing the "worst recession since World War II", there is good news to savour. With spending going towards something constructive: our national museums.

The British Museum has revealed designs for its forthcoming �135 million development project, the largest since the great court opened in 2000. Have you been to the British Museum lately? I dropped by this week to investigate a series of new galleries that have opened lately. First stop was new Medieval Gallery, housing the world famous and delightfully gloomy Lewis Chessmen. On past the Romans in England and a quick detour of the treasures from Sutton Hoo, the Anglo-Saxon burial mound, and I was at the Egyptian mummy collection. At the beginning of the year, this new Ancient Egyptian gallery opened, revealing the tomb-paintings (dating back to around 1350 BC) of accountant Nebamun, undergoing restoration since the late 1990s.

On this quick trip I didn't even have time to explore the Clocks and Watches gallery and the centre for Ceramic Studies which reputedly houses the finest collection of Chinese ceramics outside Beijing, Shanghai or Taipei, Taiwan. As is always the way with the British Museum, I left feeling inspired (just walking through the great court is enough) and vowing to return with more time to take in the rest.

But the British Museum isn't the only one spending money in the millions, passing the Victoria and Albert Museum you'll notice the scaffolding is up. This is because the V & A is spending a whooping �120 million on transforming an entire wing of the museum - and that's just the budget for the first phase. The Theatre and Performance Galleries opened in March and the Asian Buddhist Sculpture Gallery - four rooms exploring the images of the Buddha Sakyamuni - launches this month.

Further new galleries to follow are the Gilbert Collection - moved from Somerset House - which opens in June, the first phase of the Ceramics Galleries launching in September (with the second phase due in 2010), and the magnificent �30 million Medieval and Renaissance Galleries. Due to open in November, these ten new galleries in the process of being sanded down and plastered over have prompted the mammoth task of redisplaying more than 1,800 objects, the casket for the relics of St Thomas Becket among them.

On the other side of Exhibition Road, the Natural History Museum is getting ready to launch its �78 million Darwin Centre, due to open this autumn. You can already see the towering glass structure of the 8-storey addition to the landmark building from the museum's Wildlife Garden close to Queen's Gate road. Billed as "the most significant expansion at the Museum since it moved to South Kensington in 1881", the focus of the new Darwin Centre is a giant cocoon built to house millions of specimens and state-of-the-art science facilities. The museum pieces - which include specimens collected by Charles Darwin himself - are being moved in as we speak.

Despite the multi-millions being spent on these significant developments all of these museums are still free to enter. Thankfully. So if you're feeling the pinch from Alistair's less-than-darling budget get yourself to one of these magnificent, money-no-object museums.

Sugar for Mayor

He's only been in the job for a year but already Londoners are deciding who they'd vote for to replace Boris as mayor. Sir Alan 'you're hired' Sugar is the somewhat surprising candidate of choice, according to a recent Evening Standard poll. Approached by Labour as their man for London in an attempt to stop Ken Livingstone standing again, a confident Sugar has declared the job would be a "walk in the park". Mr Johnson, meanwhile, he said it's "extremely likely" that he would run for the mayoralty again, prompting speculation he's lining himself up for the Prime Minister position. His reply: "absolute nonsense".

Deptford vs Dalston

Just one month after the New York Times wrote in praise of New Cross and Deptford for its "rude boys and art students with asymmetric haircuts" giving the place 'an edge' (22 March), Paul Flynn in the Guardian put forward the argument that Dalston is "now the coolest place in Britain" (27 April). Some New Cross locals were left scratching their heads that anyone in New York had noticed that them at all. But these assertions and counter claims in the press have sparked a whole series of debates with Luke Lewis writing in the NME, "If Dalston is the coolest place in Britain, God help us all". Nights like Disco Bloodbath and obnoxious DJs confirm this as a "wretched place" for him. Deptford or Dalston... we wait to see which East London suburb emerges as the king of cool.

Indian Summer

The British Museum is promising an Indian summer with their 'Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur' exhibition beginning next month complemented by an outdoor display in the museum's great forecourt by Kew Gardens. Focussing on the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries, the exhibition will feature a loan of fifty-five works from the Mehrangarh Museum Trust in Jodhpur, never seen in the UK before. But they're not the only ones who've come up with this bright idea. The V & A have chosen the same subject for their blockbuster exhibition later in the year. 'Maharaja: The Splendour of India's Royal Courts' (opening 10th October) has objects on loan from the royal collections of Udaipur and Jodhpur from the 18th century to 1947, many of which have never before been seen in the UK. Is this is the museum equivalent of turning up to the same party in the same dress as your arch rival?

City Slickers

content@LondonTown.com — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0100

On the last day of March, just as the City was bracing itself for the now infamous G20 Summit, members of the LondonTown editorial team were invited along with various other journalists to visit some of the Square Mile's major sites by the City of London Corporation.

It was a glorious spring day, rather chilly, but with blue skies and a hot sun pre-empting the fine April weather that was around the corner. First up, we visited The Guildhall, the town hall of the City, for a session with the affable City Planning Officer Peter Rees.

Speaking over an impressive model of the City (unfortunately closed to the public) in a conference room next to the old Roman amphitheatre discovered underneath the Guildhall in the 90s, Mr Rees talked of the changing face of the Square Mile (actually, it's about 1.16 square miles) and how the City's architecture stood out for its individuality.

Quite rightly, he reminded us how the City is becoming as much a tourist destination as a centre for business, much of this due to the dramatic new buildings standing tall and glistening alongside centuries-old churches (did you know, there are 113 parishes in the City?) and the influx of retail and nightlife attractions in the area.

While Mr Rees's claim that there are more people partying in the City at 3am on weekends than in Soho might well have been a tad over-exaggerated (even for the self-confessed "oldest swinger in town") we did like his assertion that: "An unemployed banker does not stay jobless for long - he finds a new financial activity or moves on to another crime."

Swiftly on to the Guildhall Library, home to some ancient tomes (including bound FT-style stock, share and gold prices from 1698 and a property deed signed by some bard called Shakespeare) and the world's biggest collection of maps and designs. With no membership fee charged, anyone in the public can walk in off the street and see 99.9% of the collection, making the library a popular place to research family histories.

Before leaving the building we were urged to visit the loos. "They must be really good," someone quipped. "They're really not. In fact, they're quite smelly," came the answer from our guide. That in mind, opted to press on straight to our next destination: The Barbican. Although a short walk away, we where whisked off in a couple of taxis for the short �4.80 trip.

One of the main focuses of the City of London Corporation - besides helping running the world's leading international finance and business centre - is to provide a whole host of other services to tourists and Londoners alike. The Barbican, 55% funded by the Corporation, provides an essential artistic outlet for the area, successfully combining internationalism, local identity and interactive education under one roof with the universal message: "Do something different".

Over a lunch of M&S wraps, sandwiches and chocolate bites, crisps and orange squash - consumed off paper plates in a rather dingy, windowless office that befitted the archaic futurism of the building - we hobnobbed with the Barbican artistic director, Graham Sheffield.

Mr Sheffield, who joined the Barbican in 1995 from its "major competitor" the Southbank Centre, impressed with an attentive, informative chat about what he described as a "brilliantly vibrant and diverse, but for many confusing" arts centre, which takes risks because its role is to "lead public taste, not follow it like the West End".

"We're essentially replicating a three-week Edinburgh Festival throughout the year - a thoughtful tapestry of cross-referencing programmes," he continued, before concluding that his main job was to "make sense of this building". We know how he feels�

Before we had the chance to quaff down a fifth roast-beef-and-horseradish sandwich, two black cabs arrived to take us on to our slot at Tower Bridge (�16.60 per vehicle). Most of us had not visited the famous London landmark since school times (did you know it took 432 men eight years to complete the construction, at a cost of 10 lives, including the original architect?) and we were slightly disappointed with the covered walkway atop the fine structure.

Unlike Joe Public, however, we were given a tour of the hydraulic system to understand how the suspension bridge rises and falls just under 1,000 times a year. Inside those huge rock abutments is a vast open space, much of it below water level, in which a complex system of weights and pivots can bring down the bascules and open up the famous gateway.

But time was ticking away and we had a date with the 202-foot Monument, freshly reopened after its recent refurbishment. Instead of walking the short distance, we were to be picked up by taxis waiting "down an alley" by the nearby HMS Belfast. By now we were all wishing we had taken up the offer for a trip to the Guildhall lavatories and so it came as a relief to locate the taxis after what seemed like an eternity.

After our �14.20 trip (the metres were running from when we left Tower Bridge) we all made a beeline to the public toilets at Monument, providing one of the biggest surprises of the day: the facilities were spacious, clean and free. Not much has changed at Monument: there are still 311 steps to negotiate, the narrow entrance still serves as to discourage portly US tourists, the view is still pretty impressive - although the wire mesh (presumably to prevent suicides) impedes any successful attempts at photography.

At the bottom of Sir Christopher Wren's memorial to the Great Fire stood awaiting another rather fiery character, the Guildhall's head of press Greg Williams. Mr Williams, a trained Blue Badge Guide, enamoured himself to our group by almost instantly telling one radio reporter to "shut it, I do the talking here" and chastising another one for being "too lazy" after he took a long time to descent the tower (for the record, I was actually waiting for a group of German tourists to pass).

Mr Williams, a font of City knowledge, snaked us through the cobbled back-streets of Leadenhall Market and Bank, telling us anecdote after anecdote while shaming us with his bookish expertise. Days later, riot policemen would indiscriminately batter innocent passers-by on these very streets, and windows near the Bank of England were already being boarded up in preparation for the media bloodbath.

Unfortunately - for this was the highlight on the day's itinerary - our promised tour around the ornate Egyptian Hall of Mansion House was pulled owing to something or other about the approaching G20 Summit. Instead of meeting the Lord Mayor of the City of London in his official residence, we would have to settle for a session with him in the Guildhall.

With the clouds of the credit crunch hanging above his head (poor man to wait so long for his year-long stint as Lord Mayor only to be elected at such a turbulent time) Ian Luder talked about the economic agenda for the City, his fears of protectionism and his desire for global financial reform.

"This is an elephant running down the road and we all know the difference between an elephant and a rabbit," he said rather enigmatically about the topic of City bonuses and falling financial stalwarts like Sir Fred Godwin being paid off for failure. By now, concentration was waning and a cup of tea was in much need.

On our way out after a packed but enjoyable day Mr Williams pointed out the door to what he called "the figureheads' loo" - a sparkling cistern reserved only for people like the Queen or a visiting president. Had he made any attempt to covertly christen it? "No, I haven't," he replied, confused. Given the state of the "smelly" regular loos at the Guildhall, maybe he should try it one day?

Marathon Madness

Some crazy folk consider getting up early on a Sunday and running for 26 miles to be fun. Others take it one step further and decide to run the London Marathon dressed up as a stuffed donkey. One crazy couple even went as far as getting married along the way - stopping at the 24 mile mark to say "I do" after a swift shower. Conditions were exceptionally bright and sunny with temperatures peaking at 18.9C, causing 6,038 runners to need treatment - far more than the 4,093 last year. Well ahead of the fun runners and celebrities (Jordon and Peter Andre, and Gordon Ramsay among them) the women's competition was won by German Irina Mikitenko, who retained her title with a time of just over two hours and 22 minutes, while the men's record was broken by Samuel Wanjiru, who won in 2:05:10.

Island Anniversary

Amy Winehouse, Grace Jones and Paul Weller are all featuring in the Island 50 Festival, celebrating 50 years of Island Records. The special half century birthday celebrations - a week of live shows by artists represented by the well known record label - start on Tuesday 26th May at Shepherds Bush Empire. Lucky Londoners who managed to get their hands on these coveted tickets will be treated to performances by legendary artists including Aswad (Brinsley Forde, Drummie Zeb and Tony Gad), VV Brown, Tinchy Stryder and the i-Threes - featuring Bob Marley & The Wailers' backing singers Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths and Erica Newell.

Put Yourself on a Pedestal

There's one place in London this summer where nudity and protest will be positively encouraged. And it doesn't get much more publicly prominent than the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. Antony Gormley's 'One & Other' project means that, from 6th July, the empty plinth will be inhabited 24 hours a day for 100 days. So far 22,000 people have registered their interest in being part of the living sculpture. Of those, 2,400 will be randomly selected to take their place on the plinth for one hour to do as they wish (teeing off golf balls, anyone?). Gormley has said he fully accepts that there will be moments of outrageousness.

Woody Set for Rematch

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

News broke this week that Nicole Kidman is the latest star to join the stellar cast of Woody Allen's next London-shot film. The Australian actress will team up with Anthony Hopkins, Josh Brolin, Freida Pinto (of Slumdog Millionaire fame), Antonio Banderas and Naomi Watts for a project that is yet untitled and seemingly unscripted. The only thing we do know is that it will be shot in London this summer, marking Allen's return to the capital following his Catalan caper Vicky Cristina Barcelona and the soon-to-be released New York film noir Whatever Works.

Allen's love affair with movie making in London began with the 2005 psychological social drama Match Point, starring Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and his favoured muse du jour Scarlett Johansson. The tale of an Irish ex professional tennis player's attempts to enter the moneyed upper class of London, Match Point was lambasted for its chronically poor dialogue and inaccurate portrayal of London, but raked in more than $85m worldwide and had Allen claiming it was "arguably the best film" he had made.

My personal take on the film is that is a very under-rated piece of cinema which, one day, may receive cult status; the wooden dialogue is so cringe-worthy and the subject matter (tennis, acting, social climbing and London life in general) so waywardly unconvincing that it can only be intentional, with the overall effect making Match Point irrepressibly comedic in hue.

It certainly does act as an excellent guidebook to a fantastic city, taking in the likes of the Tate Modern, Covent Garden and the Royal Opera House, Mayfair and Belgravia, the Queen's Tennis Club, Holland Park, St James's Park, and restaurants such as Locanda Locatelli and Julie's. The list goes on and on. Of course, only London's gems are included - but seeing that we're dealing with a group of people who mix (or aspire to) in the top echelons of society, then this is no crime.

That said, implausibility abounds. For instance, Johanssen's hard-up actress still manages to live in plush flats in Bayswater and Belsize Park, despite earning her crust waiting tables. What's more, it's no surprise there's a banking crisis in the UK if one of the founders of a profitable City securities firm gives a high-powered job to his daughter's hollow boyfriend, who seems bent on doing about as much work in his swanky Gherkin executive suite as Christian Bale's warped fund manager does in American Psycho. But these glitches make the film all the more endearing.

Indeed, Allen himself admits that he is rather a novice when it comes to London, saying in an interview: "I don't know the town that well [but] it's very easy to get location when you combine the beauty of the city and the beauty of the weather that you get every day. Being a city person myself, naturally I'm taken - I think anyone would be, in London - with the enormous amounts of parks and squares that they have, and the beautiful white houses."

Hinged with a cryptic script and an improbable storyline, Allen's skewed portrayal of London - seen as if looking through Manhatten with a prism - recalls some of the French surrealist films of the 70s and 80s, comparable even, dare I say, to the works of the great Luis Bunuel.

Following Match Point came Allen's less successful London films, the curious Scoop (again starring Johansson) - which was either "the worst Allen has ever made" (Washington Post) or "the funniest movie of the year" (San Francisco Chronicle) - and the rather clumsy Cassandra's Dream - "the lowest point of Allen's recently chequered career" (Empire).

Cassandra's Dream takes in the delightful Wilton's Music Hall, as well as Claridge's and One Aldwich, while Scoop features famous London landmarks such as Pall Mall's Reform Club, the Shepherd's Bush Empire, The Dorchester in Park Lane and the City Point skyscraper. Interestingly, we get a peak inside the old offices of The Observer newspaper in Farringdon in another highly unlikely plot premise: like Johansson's character, I too have done work experience in that office and, believe me, never was I sent to investigate a serial killer in the backstreets of London.

It's clear that Allen may not understand London or even come close to getting it right, but he does have a keen eye for good locations which makes for picturesque settings, however flimsy the plot. Allen's London is arguably more credible than that of, say, director Richard Curtis, who subjects the auditorium to a chocolate-box perversion of the capital that is as sickly as the coffee creams left over at the bottom of the Christmas tin of Quality Street.

Love Actually was such a monstrous movie malfeasance that it had most people in incredulous stitches of laughter throughout, four years after he had somehow portrayed Notting Hill as a place where it snows in winter, shines in summer, where everyone is white and middle class and where the only odd accent you hear is a Welsh one. It's almost as bad as the scene in Peter Howitt's Sliding Doors when the two main characters, Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hannah, bond on the Underground over a chat about the Beatles and Monty Python (as if two British strangers would ever actually talk to one another on the Tube).

Recent film portrayals of London are not all that bad, mind. Danny Boyle, who picked up an Oscar last month for Slumdog, used an eerily empty London as the captivating backdrop to his science fiction bonanza 28 Days Later. Seeing an upended double-decker bus on the capital's streets bereft of both traffic and people was unique as it was compelling.

The Bourne Ultimatum used Waterloo station in rush hour to devastating effect and also opened up the former offices of The Guardian to the cameras. Breaking and Entering, starring Jude Law, offered a superb insight to the on-going Kings Cross regeneration programme, while Russian mafia thriller Eastern Promises brought alive Farringdon and Hackney's Broadway Market with aplomb (most memorable is the scene when a naked Viggo Mortensen fights two men to the death in Ironmonger Row's Turkish baths in Islington - right next to the pool where I learnt to swim as a child).

More recently, Guy Richie's latest offering - the under-rated RocknRolla - shot scenes in the East End, Arsenal's Emirates Stadium (owned by a fictional Russian oligarch in a flagrant, not to mention borderline libellous, nod to Roman Abramovich) and Chelsea's Brompton Cemetery (scene of a particularly gruesome throat slashing on match day).

A more challenging portrayal of London came in the Clive Owen film Children of Men, the opening scene of which features a terrorist attack on Fleet Street shot less than two months after the 7/7 bombings - a chilling reminder of the days we live in. Set in 2027, the film also has Battersea Power Station turned into an art gallery complete with Banksy pictures in what was surely a homage to the Tate Modern.

Whatever the subject matter of Allen's upcoming film, let's hope it does London a service - not in attracting tourists, but in stimulating the viewer and portraying the city in a fair light. It will not be hard to improve on his last two efforts in the capital, but with such a strong cast, and the wind seemingly in the director's sails following the success of VCB, maybe this will be game, set, match and Allen's best London film yet.

Year of the Goat

Here's a novel way to spend the Oxford and Cambridge boat race day - watching goats (instead of boats) going head to head. As the historic university rivals battle it out on the river, Spitalfields City Farm is running the first ever Oxford vs Cambridge Goat Race, pitching two real live goats against one another. That's not all. There's also a goatee competition, goat wrestling and a strict dress code: black tie, boat club jackets and ties, rowing lycra, or - you guessed it - goat.

G20 Chaos?

Disruptions are predicted at next week's G20 summit which brings leaders of the twenty member countries to London to discuss key issues affecting the global economy. In addition to a 'severe' terror threat - prompting �10 million to be spent security - are rumblings of discontent on 'anarchist' websites calling for direct action. City workers could well be targeted and staff in the City are being advised to dress down and postpone non-essential meetings. The G20 members themselves may also see some action with protestors thought to be planning to drive a tank to the ExCel centre where the summit is taking place, or delivering a block of ice to the venue to highlight issues around climate change.

Gay Icons at the NPG

In the same week that one in six therapists admitted they have attempted to 'cure' homosexuality (!?), the National Portrait Gallery published details of their gay icons exhibition, due to open in July. Among the list of inspirational people to go on display are Princess Diana, Quentin Crisp and Will Young. Chosen by a panel which included Sir Elton John and Sir Ian McKellen, and chaired by Sandy Toksvig, the group includes an eclectic mix and, thankfully, some less obvious choices. Instead of Kylie Minogue (yawn), for example, we have Nelson Mandela. Elton opted for two straight men - his longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin and the cellist, the late Rostropovich.

Take a Bow, London

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Boris Johnson in uttering something sensible shock! Yes, it has been alleged that our Mayor of London said something that people might not actually recoil at; might even find themselves nodding their heads to in some quarters, when he addressed the star-studded audience of the Olivier Awards. Of course, he had time to rehearse the pre-recorded spiel but the gist wasn't at all bad. He pooh-poohed the nasty media for harping on about the failing economy and turned the spotlight on - ta-dah! - our wonderfully fabulous Theatreland. He did spoil it immediately by then plugging the Tube (did someone mention harping on?) but one can forgive a few fluffed lines here and there!

And so here we have it: the Olivier Awards 2009, making a rather flamboyant entrance at Grosvenor House in Park Lane, no less, because frankly it's all about being centre stage. But, then, above the orchestra pit comes a few dissident rustlings, spoiling the show for everybody else. Mentioning no names (Michael Billington), they generally start about a month or so before the Awards, so they can have a really good grumble about the nominations. What's out rather than what's in: where, pray tell, are Michael Boyd, Rupert Goold, Kenneth Branagh? And, then, the morning after the night before the real sniping starts about "the murky business of theatre awards"; "not sour grapes but simply an encouragement to everyone to be sceptical about the statuette-brandishing business". The Oliviers are only for London theatre, only certain theatres in London are eligible, they're neither transparent nor democratic enough and, besides, there are too many theatre awards around anyway. And so it goes on.

Can't we all just celebrate the celebration and, so, celebrate the fact that West End theatre is worth celebrating - if you follow. In any case, the Awards are a theatrical spectacle in themselves worthy of any opening night. What else would you expect from such a profusion of thesps? Amid the Royal Shakespeare Company thanking everyone down to the post boy in Stratford-upon-Avon (London, remember, London), actooooooors being very earnest about their art and pouting celebrities generally tottering about (they're the ones not clutching awards and sort of half-draping, half-propelling themselves into photographs), only Derek Jacobi (Best Actor) can do it properly, but then he is a well-seasoned professional at this sort of thing (wonderful honour, little bit emotional, kisses the award) and he has the added advantage of being able to pay tribute to Laurence Olivier as a friend.

Just a stage whisper: if you do happen to see a play starring Jacobi - or someone of his ilk (Dame Judi is another safe bet), it's always worth queuing for the loos for the interval entertainment. There'll be scores of luvvies exclaiming - as if they're on stage themselves - things like "Derek... Jacobi... is... just... a-maaa-zing." Cue much concurrence from their fur-clad friends and another gin-on-the-rocks before the second act.

Aside from the awards and the luvvies - the play-within-the play - the curtain's up, the show must go on and the West End is in the spotlight. And the Olivier Awards are lighting up a Golden Age of London theatre. Yes, despite 'the Crunch', the theatres are full (you try getting a ticket for the Donmar or the Globe) and playwrights, directors and actors are doing awe-inspiring work. So, David Tennant slipped up with a prolapsed disc - meaning no nomination - leaving the way for Claudius (Patrick Stewart) to take Hamlet's prize (again). La Cage aux Folles burst onto the scene for a sensational star turn to announce it as the Best Musical Revival with Douglas Hodge coming out as the Best Actor in a Musical. And The Histories swept the boards at the Roundhouse with a forage into Shakespeare's world of English kings, crowned as Best Company Performance, Best Revival and Best Costume Design.

It wouldn't be the full bill without mentioning Black Watch, qualifying for nomination by the skin of its teeth but winning a decisive victory for the Best New Play, Director, Choreographer and Sound Awards. A little prompt that August: Osage County came all the way from Broadway (it won Best Set Design) and then the obligatory tributes to the dead (no posthumous award, just a mention for Harold Pinter, we think) and the living (Alan Ayckbourn, hooray!)

Mwah Mwah!

A standing ovation.

This is the West End after all.

Bad Planning for Camden Passage

Camden Passage in Islington lost its appeal to save the Mall as the historic arcade was dismissed as 'crude' by a Government planning inspector. It's a sad case of homogenising of the high street as the 18th century former tramshed is to be turned into yet another high street shop. Jack Wills, a chain of clothes shops, replaces the unique antiques shops which have traded here for the past 40 years, giving Camden Passage Mall its colourful character. The inspector over-ruled an appeal by local campaigners and dismissed the Mall as, "of a loose Victorian or Georgian style and are rather crudely executed." Adding, the specialist shops had no special interest or value and gave no "richness of experience."

Jacko Fever

The city came under siege as Jacko Fever reached boiling point this month. Fans of the moon walking one went (literally) crazy and queued through the night at the O2 for tickets to see him during his 50-day residency there in the summer. We can't see what all the fuss is about. Apparently, he's been away for 12 years. Can't say we noticed. However, those fans who consider themselves lucky to have got their hands on the prized 1 million tickets will be pleased to hear that Michael is planning something spectacular - entering on an elephant with 100 Masai warriors and a whole menagerie of animals to continue the jungle theme (if the animal rights people don't stop him).

Olympic Artistic Inspiration

In the countdown to the Olympics (only 3 years to go!), a �5.4m contest has been launched, 'Artists Taking the Lead', to create 12 public works of art inspired by the 2012 Olympics. If you're artistically inclined you could be in line for up to �500,000 to create a piece for the Cultural Olympiad in the run-up to the London games. Described by the London 2012 organisers as, "the most ambitious and wide-ranging art prize in the UK", it's certainly a welcome cash injection to add a dash of art, culture and colour to the muscles and grunts of the sporting event.

New Photography Laws

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

During the incredible few days of snow this month I went for a wander in St James's park armed with my camera. Amongst the myriad snowmen, dog walkers and - believe it or not - skiers who were the principal targets of my snapping, I took a nice shot of two policemen walking towards Buckingham Palace. Had the snow come a couple of weeks later, I might well have just broken the law.

You see, from 16th February anyone taking photographs of policemen or soldiers could be viewed as committing a criminal offence. Tourists: better think twice now about catching the Changing of the Guard or the iconic British bobby on film.

The reason for this confusion is the implementation of Section 76 of the 2008 Counter Terrorism Act which criminalises (with a punishment of up to 10 years in prison) anyone "eliciting, publishing or communicating information" relating to past or present members of the armed forces, intelligence services and police officers, which is "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".

Professional photographers are up in arms about the whole charade: not that it will curtail their moonlighting for al-Qaeda but that police will no doubt use the law as a way of suppressing evidence. Consequently, more than 200 snappers convened at New Scotland Yard on the day the law came into force to take pictures of the fuzz in what they saw as a demonstration of their simple right.

But it's not just the professionals who could be affected. In today's iWorld of digital mastery, everyone has at least a camera phone and the capacity to "publish" their snaps on blogs or social networking sites such as Flickr and Facebook.

In short, the new law could have a huge impact on our freedom of taking photographs in London. I have already mentioned the traditional policemen and the bearskins of the Irish Guards, but the possibilities do not stop there. What about the Tower of London's famous 'Beefeater' Yeoman Wardens, all of whom are retired from the British Armed Forces? Or the policemen on horseback in Hyde Park? Or pop singer Sting?!

There are implications for sporting events, too. Football games require a strong police presence, while the 2012 Olympics will no doubt be heavily patrolled precisely because of the enormous scope for terrorism. Are we really going to impose a photography ban on the thousands of sporting fans who will flock to London for the Games from all around the world?

Will I, a law abiding 27 year old, put one foot in prison by posting online pictures of my friends James and Alex - a soldier and a policeman respectively? And supposing James tells me in good faith that he's going back to serve a term of duty in Iraq - and then I absent-mindedly "publish" this information on Facebook, whereby alerting potential extremists (of which there are so many amongst my friends) to this change of UK foreign policy? Such a disclosure is "likely to be useful" in inciting a potential act of terrorism, but can hardly amount to a plot.

The storm sees the principles of one's civil liberties on one side pitted against the protection of national welfare and safety on the other. It's interesting to note that many people don't appreciate that it was technically illegal to take photos in airports and the Underground prior to 16th February. I made the mistake of taking my digital SLR to the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow last year and was accosted by two officers and forced to delete the photos in front of their eyes. And yet days later I was taking pictures of Moscow airport, sans souci, while a year previously I snapped a whole group of willing Gendarmes while watching the Tour de France.

We can go round in circles arguing the cases for and against but sometimes it helps to simplify things. From a personal viewpoint, I am not really in the habit of photographing policemen or soldiers in the UK and if I did, I'm confident that I would be cleared of any terroristic wrongdoing.

I also can't see Beefeaters or the Irish Guards causing too much fuss and forcing tourists to delete their memory cards, while many policemen have already said they will cast a blind eye. Those who are in line to suffer are professional photographers covering rallies or demonstrations for whom it is largely unavoidable to photograph men in uniform.

The law obviously brings about a whole grey area which will no doubt cause a few confrontations, but if we're talking about protecting national security at a time when any attack would be crippling then it's for the better. If this can prevent another 7/7 then surely it's a good thing, despite its confusion, and in reality, I imagine very little will change. I just wouldn't recommend any Brazilian (or bearded) tourists take pictures of policemen on Stockwell tube, that's all.

A City Climb

After a bit of a polish to its golden orb, The Monument has reopened to the public so we can now all pant our way up its 311 steps to look out over the City. Restoration work is carried out on the structure every 100 years or so to keep it in tiptop shape; the last time being in 1888. Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke designed The Monument to commemorate the Great Fire of London in 1666 and it stands proud as the world's highest isolated stone column at 61 metres. Worth a peek from the top!

A Libretto from The Sun

Shock, horror probe - the Royal Opera House does low culture! Is this a move to entice a new audience of tabloid readers through its hallowed doors or do opera's bigwigs really think they can turn the sensationalised story of the late glamour model Anna Nicole Smith's marriage to a rich - very rich actually - businessman into a tragic love story? The kind usually gracing the prestigious Covent Garden stage? It would seem so. "It's not going to be a horrible, sleazy evening", said director of opera Elaine Padmore. Oh, you do disappoint!

A Drop in the Ocean at Chelsea

While the rest of London looks forward to the next 2-for-1 voucher at Pizza Express, Chelsea Football Club did not seem overly concerned with a loss of �65.7 million for the last financial year. It would seem that the words 'credit' and 'crunch' are not overly familiar to the likes of chief exec Peter Kenyon and if star players John Terry and Frank Lampard had to shave a couple of quid of their expenses, it probably wouldn't be too much of a strain. Still, the club's loss is around �9 million less than it was last year so perhaps Abramovich is encouraging a little belt tightening - although hefty payouts to sacked managers can't help matters much.

Glitz and the Pitts

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

It was all eyes on Kate Winslet at the Baftas last week. Would she be able to remember the names of her very famous fellow nominees? Who's the other one, who, who? Ah yes, Angelina Jolie. It's surprisingly easy to forget one of the world's most famous living actresses when you're put on the spot without your cue cards.

We watched in anticipation, waiting to see if she would break down in great, big gushing sobs like she did at the Golden Globes. It was a half hiding, half watching viewing experience, a bit like watching an episode of 'The Office' and screwing your face up at the cringe worthy bit.

I'm usually a fan of the self-confessed 'girl from Reading' but Ms Winslet's sobbing Globes speech really was toe curling. In three minutes on stage she undid a whole career spent proving she does actually have talent. Ignoring the titanic sell-out that was 'Titanic', she's shown she can do some pretty decent roles in independent movies like 'Hideous Kinky'.

Speaking of Ricky Gervais, he was the one who gave us Ordinary Kate who proved she could swear in 'Extras'. So where once we were had 'cursing Kate' we now have 'crying Kate'. Personally, I preferred the potty mouthed nun - but then again, that could be a confusing case of fact blurring into fiction or the other way around. At least, I think that the nun was her 'in character'. When they said 'cut' and the backstage swearing started I presumed that was the real life Kate so it's easy to see where the confusion comes from.

Back to the Baftas. Where our Kate is bravely containing any emotional outbursts and, thankfully, didn't even allude to any fellow actresses - and kept it to within the time limit. Apparently, the trick is in the preparation and this time she'd practiced. Funny, it may be ten years since Gwyneth's sobbing Oscar acceptance speech but we all still remember that - Kate, be warned.

The Baftas are to the Brits what the Oscars are to the Americans and it was good to see 'Slumdog Millionaire' bagging no less than seven shiny golden masks at the Royal Opera House awards ceremony. The award winning film about winning a million has, it seems, won over audiences and cinema goers everywhere� except in India.

Also honoured at the Baftas was legendary off-the-wall director Terry Gilliam. If you've seen 'Monty Python', 'Brazil' or 'Life Aquatic' you'll know exactly how crazily inventive this madcap genius is - and if you haven't, then rent them, immediately. Artist Steve McQueen also got a gong for his film 'Hunger'. "As good a first film as I've seen," according to Slumdog director Danny Boyle. The multi-talented Turner Prize winning McQueen who's representing Britain at the Venice Biennale this year is evidently one to watch.

Sunday night in with the awards on the telly, I perked up a bit. The Royal Opera House, you say? I was at the very same venerable Covent Garden venue just the night before for a very thrilling performance of La Bayadere. By my reckoning, Brad Pitt was sitting in my seat. A mere 24 hours earlier and he would have been perched on my lap. If only I'd had the foresight to sleep under my seat I could have popped up at the opportune moment and introduced myself to the Pitts. You've gotta love London - a city where you're always just two steps away from becoming best friends with Hollywood's hottest A-list celebrity couple.

[Thanks to Maggiejumps on Flickr for the image]

A Room with a View

The 'Cash in the Attic' team would have a field day in Westminster Abbey's Triforium - a secret hideout high above the church floor - and they might even find the odd stained glass window here, a mint condition angelic stone corbel there worth a bob or two. The Abbey Dean wants to open up this attic room - minus the pigeon droppings, hopefully - to the public for the spectacular view looking down, but the tricky bit is how we're all going to make our precarious way up there without breaking every health and safety rule in the book!

A Walk on the Wild-ish Side

London Zoo's new kiddies' attraction is like a mini safari for little animal lovers except perfectly safe, parents are assured. Animal Adventure does exactly what is says on the tin, offering children the chance to climb up to where red pandas live, crawl underground alongside aardvarks and cosy up to ferrets while the grown-ups await their return from the wild! It's all in the name of nurturing nature-loving youngsters and a great idea for entertaining them during school hols�opens at Easter.

Curtain's Up on a Glittering Year!

We do so love David Tennant but apparently he's just one or two performances short of an Olivier, having had to pull out of most of the RSC's West run of 'Hamlet' with a slipped disc. But let's not let that spoil our fun as we're reminded - once again - by these London-focussed awards just how fabulous our West End theatre is. Shakespeare holds his own alongside glitzy drag queens (La Cage aux Folles) and Broadway hits sweep into town (August: Osage County) to battle it out with the Donmar - all in a day's work!

Setting the Standard

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

It doesn't seem the most obvious business move but Russian billionaire tycoon Alexander Lebedev has bought the debt-crippled London Evening Standard for the nominal sum of �1. In doing so, the former KGB spy has become the first Russian oligarch to own a British title - and has opened up a potted debate about national decline. Your guess is as good as mine as to what Mr Lebedev actually intends to do with an ailing paper which has losses estimated as high as �25m annually (a smokescreen for some Bond villain-style, mini-media empire, perhaps?) but one thing he has promised is that editorial independence will be safeguarded. Which sounds promising until you consider that his son, Evgeny, is being tipped to become the new editor.

I used to love the Standard. I still do, in many respects. The ES magazine on Friday may make me feel rotten for not being invited to all those glamorous showbiz parties, but reading the 'My London' section at the back usually gets me excited about the weekend, providing ample inspiration for places to visit. When I was a child living in the countryside, my father used to come home from work brandishing a copy of the theatreland-friendly, tabloid-style, picture-heavy paper which broke news from that unknown buzzing city called London where I was born but no longer lived. What's more, when David Mellor wasn't writing about his beloved Chelsea, the sports section seemed entirely devoted to my team Arsenal - until the arrival of Mr Abramovich in SW6.

Like the rise in foreign influence in football, the installation of a Russian at the helm of a 181-year-old British institution such as the Standard has seen many media commentators mourn the corrosion of national pride. Perhaps a better signal of national pride's relentless fall, however, are the very free-sheets that have made the Standard's life such a tricky one.

Granted, the Standard's former owners, Lord Rothermere's Daily Mail & General Trust, must shoulder much of the blame for coming up with the idea of London Lite (n�e Standard Lite) in the first place. But the subsequent rise of the lamentable London Paper, with its celebrity tat masquerading as news, seems to have put the final nail in the coffin. Forget too that its owner, the Australian Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, is making an almighty loss on the publication - the real damage is for Lebedev's new plaything, which, costing 50p more than its free rivals, no longer sets the standard each evening on the Underground. If anything is making London liter it is these poor excuses for keeping printers in a job, but that's another matter.

One former national broadsheet editor told me the Standard's sale was "a sad omission of defeat" by Rothermere, adding: "The paper has been slowly dying for years and the mad battle of the give-aways has almost finished it off. If the former KGB man wants to invest in it, then I suppose we should be grateful and wish him luck, for any capital city should have its own evening paper. It appears that his other papers produce some quite brave journalism, which is encouraging, and we can hardly start to be concerned about foreigners owning our newspapers at this stage. It is tempting to make an exception for Russians, and friends of Putin would surely not be welcome, but that, apparently, is not Mr Lebedev."

So, what can Londoners expect from Lebedev when he officially takes the reins? It's hard to tell, exactly, but it seems that besides the issue of editorial integrity, the paper will be rebranded, its staff probably rejigged. Unlike Abramovich, who came to London with no prior knowledge of football and quickly agreed to splurge �15m on Juan Sebastian Veron, Lebedev is no novice - two years ago he teamed up with ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to take over leading Russian liberal paper Novaya Gazeta. Rumours now abound that Gorbachev will be joined by former British PM Tony Blair on a new editorial board that will usher in a new era at the Standard. People are also talking of a takeover bid for the struggling Independent paper, which recently moved into the DMGT's office block on High Street Kensington (which begs the question, will the Indy have to change its name?).

Given Lebedev's publicised on-going personal feud with Ken Livingston - ironically making him the ideal candidate for the notoriously anti-Ken Standard - Mayor Boris Johnson should derive a modicum of support. Expect also some nice words for compatriot Abramovich: on his online journal, Mr Lebedev last year said his friend Roman was the only person who could sort out Moscow's chronic traffic problem (it's worse than London, believe me�) and labelled him the "obvious choice" for the position as Mayor of the Russian capital.

Come to think of it, Abramovich might soon have more time for such a key role back in his homeland: if you believe papers such as the Standard, the oil tycoon is ready to listen to offers for the debt-ridden football club he bought for around �140m in 2003 and subsequently bolstered with �500m in loans to buy new players. Abramovich's fortune is said to have shed �3bn during the global credit crunch, and with the Russian supposedly suffering liquidity problems, he would jump at the opportunity of selling Chelsea to a rich Arabian oil magnate.

So, in London's ever changing game of movers-and-Sheikhers, it could be one Russian in, one Russian out - and possibly another strand of the Saudi royal family entering the fray - all rather standard for our cosmopolitan capital.

Recession: it's official!

The recession was made official today. Hurrah! The worst since 1980, if you want to be even more cheery about it. And London will be the worst hit according to a study by the Centre for Economics and Business. It's a case of 'everything must go' - including several hundred thousands jobs, apparently. But there are good things to come out of the downturn - businesses that suddenly really want your custom, for example. Service may actually be delivered with a smile. And there are bargains galore in what appear to be permanent sales. Just last year London was found to be the most expensive city in Europe; isn't it about time we re-dressed the balance?

The London Stage Thrives

"It was a quite remarkable year," says Nica Burns, President of the Society of London Theatre of 2008. Last year London's theatres had a record-breaking year as both attendances and box office revenues reached new levels despite economic troubles. Numbers attending musicals, plays, opera and dance performances in the capital totalled 13,807,286, up 1% on the previous record set in 2007. Box office revenue amounted to �480,563,674, up 3% on 2007's record figure. "It would seem people still want to be entertained and stimulated in numbers," Nica concludes.

Slumdog Squatters

Two Park Lane properties worth �15 million apiece were taken over by squatters shortly after Christmas - now there's a Christmas present worth keeping. A fiddling occupant of the luxury house in one of London's prime postcodes appeared at a balcony, playing his violin to the entertainment of the assembled press. Papers like the Daily Mail love this kind of thing. It does, of course, beg the question of where the owners are. And why these mansion buildings are standing empty. In these recessionary times, surely maximising housing resources should be encouraged. The two pleased looking bailiffs who dogged water from overhead as they delivered a court notice may not agree.

Too Much for Posh Nosh?

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is a bumper year for London's Michelin starred restaurants. Announced this month - following a premature leak - the esteemed Michelin guide awarded . And it wasn't just the capital that got star struck. The guide's editor, Derek Bulmer, said: "We have never awarded so many stars in a single year before - in all, 26 restaurants won a single star for the first time. It's great news for the food-lover but the timing, arguably, couldn't be worse.

Given that the people who can most afford to eat at such establishments are the most likely to have lost their appetites, their wallets or both, some of the pricier places will no doubt struggle to survive the year. At least for the rest of us it may mean an escape from sitting next to a table of 'suits' loudly talking about their obscenely excessive bonuses. And that's not the only thing that'll put you off your expensive plate of skate. You also get the sickening feeling that these big bellied loud mouths are expensing their seven course extravaganza - a weekly perk - while you've scrimped and saved.

Coincidentally, in the same week that the Michelin hastily announced their starred restaurants we heard of several top food places in the city feeling the sharp end of the credit crunch. Aaya, a Soho joint set up last year by Alan Yau's brother, was named Oriental Restaurant of the Year at last year's London Restaurant Awards held in the swanky Dorchester ball room. Fast forward five months and the award winning place has gone from top of its class to liquidation. FishWorks is another upmarket restaurant to hit the skids with only two of their London restaurants avoiding the chop.

It makes me question what does all this mean for the bumper crop of Michelin starred eateries in town? What does 2009 hold in store in for places like the River Caf� and the nose-to-tail gastronomy at the newly starred St John? Having eaten at these restaurants on more than one occasion, I suspect these two at least will survive. If Ruth Rogers - the woman who gave the young Jamie Oliver a job - continues with her distinctive brand of Italian cuisine I suspect the Caf� will continue to entertain its riverside diners.

Fergus Henderson's new star is a well deserved win. With his unabashed use of pig's pieces - from the trotter to the crispy ear - he has done much to revive the less revered cuts of meat. And he was putting all these so called off cuts to good use well before the credit crunch made it common sense and fashionable to do so. In fact, strictly speaking, it's down to him that eating bone marrow is now a fashion statement among those who savour London's Brit revival restaurants.

Still, for most of us, these �100 a head meals out are at best a bit of a treat, or, worse still, completely out of the question. There is, however, one way to get posh nosh without the outrageously expensive restaurant bill at the end. If you've been watching the Big Chef does Little Chef on TV you'll know the best way to get three Michelin star cuisine on a budget... drive down to the A303 and stop off at Popham's service station for a Heston Blumenthal meal for less.

Keane for Christmas

Just before Christmas, shoppers in Covent Garden were treated to an impromptu jamming session by baby faced Keane front-man Tom Chaplin. The free street concert was part of Super Busking, a series of gigs held at the historic Piazza to raise money for homeless charity Crisis. Keane classics like 'Somewhere Only We Know' and 'Everybody's Changing' sounded out under the fairy lights and helped shoppers get into the Christmas spirit. Missed it? Don't worry, you can still see the performance online at www.coventgardenlondonuk.com.

Farewell to Great Playwright Pinter

There was universal sadness over the death of Harold Pinter as tributes flooded in from anyone who'd ever met the Nobel prize-winning playwright. The London stage has been lit up by many of Pinter's plays including 'The Caretaker', 'The Birthday Party' and 'The French Lieutenant's Woman'. The last of his works to be staged in his lifetime was 'No Man's Land', starring long time friend and colleague Michael Gambon and directed by Rupert Goold. We look forward to seeing his plays on the London stage for many years to come.

Wossy heads to White City

In other news, Jonathan Ross is back on our screens. Judging by the amount of print inches written on the Sachs scandal you'd think it was Wossy moving into the White House this week. Instead, he returned to the (slightly less salubrious) BBC studios at White City in West London. It was very much business as usual as after the three month suspension as the presenter interviewed Tom Cruise, Stephen Fry and comedian Lee Evans, interrupting the programme to apologise to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.

January is on the Horizon

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings instead of ones of comfort and joy as the Christmas carol goes, but when the last mince pie crumb has been gobbled, when the credits have rolled on the Christmas 'EastEnders' with Nasty Nick making a comeback (again) and when Father Christmas has ridden away all sleigh bells ting-ting-ting-a-ling for another year, the bleak mid-winter is upon us. Yep, it's January folks - acknowledged by most normal people as the most depressing month of the year; a time for huge credit card bills, that dreaded Monday morning back-to-work feeling but ten times worse and - why do this to yourself? - detoxing!

I think the depression actually starts on the last day of December. All that pressure to have the best night of your life EVER! As much as I tell myself that I just don't care, that the midnight chimes of Big Ben cannot lure me into singing Auld Lang Syne after several hundred gins, that I'm far too old to be traipsing around Trafalgar Square at 3am on New Year's Day trying to work out which night bus will take me south of the river, the pressure still gets me in the end. A few days before Christmas, I start to panic that all my friends have already made plans and my lack of invitations means that it won't be the best night of my life EVER - it never is�cue a dinner party in Olympia and gin!

So, January starts with a hangover and it never seems to pick up pace from here. Well, the word on the street seems to be to spend more - yes, that's right, credit schmunch - to get oneself through January. Boris Johnson (before you groan and hit your head repeatedly on your keyboard, please pause and take a moment to reflect on the sheer stupidity of the man we - yes, London, this is your fault - put in charge) has already been expounding the virtues of splashing cash. In a campaign reminiscent of wartime recruitment posters, our over-sized public schoolboy of a mayor appears to be saying "Your Economy Needs You". In a roundabout sort of bumbling way - still, no surprises there - I'm guessing the phrase credit crunch isn't heard much around the halls of Eton.

Here it is:

Boris was going to give his entire family home-made chutney for Christmas - "Yes, kiddos, Father Christmas is giving you chutney for Christmas whether you like it or not", he writes in 'The Daily Telegraph, "and he's giving the same to his brothers and sisters and his parents and his in-laws and frankly just about everybody else to whom he owes festive tokens of fiefdom and fealty."

And then he had a visitation from an angel who said unto him: thou have enough money Mr Johnson to stop being so tight and giving everyone chutney for Christmas. He goes on (and on): "�I am afraid to say that I have been assailed by uncharacteristic doubt. I look up at those thrifty brown pots of gloop, and then I look down at the paper, and I see that terrible things are happening on the high street of Britain, with sales down 8�4 per cent year on year. I see that Jaguar Land Rover, makers of luxury cars, are in danger of going under - and I wonder am I doing the right thing?"

Then he says something about the proletariat and here's the crux: "And of course if everybody else gives nothing but chutney, then the economy will completely seize up, and by this time next year no one will have enough money to pay even for the sugar or the vinegar, and the nation will be reduced to such a state of penury that even home-made Christmas presents will be too expensive for us to produce."

Well, with arguments like that, it's easy to see how he became Mayor of London. The moral of this little chutney story seems to be that - if we have cash to spend, as Boris does - going to the shops is our "patriotic duty". What about his duty? I thought he was meant to be spending his time running London instead of writing about chutney in The Daily Telegraph. Frankly, it makes me never want to set foot in another shop ever again. So bah humbug to that!

Still, there is another, in my opinion much more sensible, way to get through January. Go on holiday! Say goodbye to the January blues and say hello to New York, Hong Kong, Athens. The absolute best bit about the start of the year has to be a whole new quota of annual leave to play with and with airlines feeling the pinch, cheap flights are now ten a penny. Well, you can get to New York for �259, which is still pretty good. There is the small matter of the pound being really rather small when you get there but hey, the travel industry needs you!

Don't bother with easyJet or Ryanair - they don't even allocate you seats; getting on the plane resembles the first day of the January sales on Oxford Street, not a pleasant way to start your holiday. No, no, no, with Virgin and BA trying to undercut each other, it's far better to enjoy the free gin and tonics.

Oh, and one more word of advice - with all those empty seats in business class, try for an upgrade! January's looking up�

It's Not To Be

We've been following the progress of David Tennant's Hamlet from Shakespeare's birthplace to West End stage with avid interest, so much were we looking forward to him performing a soliloquy or seven at the Novello Theatre. But "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" have got him just where it hurts: in a back injury. The Dr Who star has had surgery but - sob! - it does mean he's currently out of action. Still, the show must go on, there's no point crying over slipped discs and Patrick Stewart is still in it. And, of course, Edward Bennett - Tennant's understudy a few weeks ago but now taking centre stage as a really rather impressive Hamlet.

Death warrants, signed with a fair hand

Henry VIII, he's always good for a bit of gory English history - he killed two wives, 20 peers, a handful of his closest friends, three abbots and a cardinal, to name but a few. But why dwell on that when we could look at�his handwriting. Yep, it's a new approach by the British Library to present Henry the man (I'm sure Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard's headless bodies are turning in their graves). The new exhibition is opening in April to mark the 500th anniversary of his accession to the throne, exploring a reign that spans his good-looking days, his Catholic piety (obviously pre-Reformation) and his military prowess - with a bit of tyranny dotted around.

Let's wrap it up

It's not going to knock X Factor winner Alexandra Burke off the Christmas number one slot but you've got to give those crazy kids down at Thames Water credit for trying. In a stuffy press release about not pouring turkey fat down the drain after Christmas dinner - 'Anti-fat advice' for Londoners ignorant of that fact that 'Fat blocks sewers' - there's a hidden gem at the end. Employee Steve Rock fought off stiff competition from over 60 others to win the song competition. His version of 'God rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' goes: 'This Christmas think of sewer-men Who tremble in dismay When grease from goose and fatted fowl Is idly poured away.' On that note�

Merry Christmas

content@LondonTown.com — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Cancel Christmas? What would poor Tiny Timmy think? But that seems to be what many companies have decided this year. Christmas parties have been cancelled, down-sized and called something completely different this year as entertainment budgets have been slashed. These are belt-tightening times in more ways than one. Even if businesses do have the money, they don't want to be seen to be spending it. I suspect the thinking goes along the lines of� 'how bad will it look if we throw a huge bash in December, only to fire half the people at the party in two months'.

While reports of empty restaurants and half-hearted parties reach us we can count ourselves lucky that there was no such scrimping for the LondonTown party which was a beatboxing and Bearlesque night to remember. For the uninitiated, think cuddly, bearded, bear-like men with their bellies out and you're halfway there. At the same time, the feeding frenzy on the high street has been branded 'obscene' by certain sectors. Some shameless shoppers have been seen snapping up cut-price Transformer toys like vultures dining on the carcass of crumbling companies (RIP Woolies) and slashed down sales.

All this points to the deepening economic meltdown. Just what we didn't want for Christmas. And, with the pound-euro ratio looking very bad for us Brits right now, thoughts of holidaying in Europe this summer are being abandoned.

Still, that hasn't stopped booze Britain sinking some pints - in fact, with depressing headlines like these - and 50,000 jobs or so a day being axed - we can be forgiven for trying to forget. Yes, the final days of 2008 seem like the ideal time to seek out solace at the bottom of a bottle. Well, you'll make up it for with a dry January (if only it wasn't the darkest, coldest month of the year and the worst possible time to give up the booze).

There is a serious side to the annual office high jinks, though, and you've got to spare a thought for the poor old paramedics tasked with cleaning up the sickly mess. One front line medic branded the level of drunkenness on the city streets as "ridiculous". And you only have to go out in Camden to see what he means. In London, they even laid on special buses to help the over-stretched emergency services.

Police in Ipswich have come up with a novel approach to the problem, dreaming up a 'drink drivel' campaign. With it comes a list of the words and phrases most difficult to say when you're 'tired and emotional'. These include the words 'innovative', 'preliminary' and 'cinnamon'. Apparently, through extensive research, they've discovered that, "Good evening, officer, isn't it lovely out tonight?" is absolutely impossible to say when the average late night party goer is three sheets to the wind.

In the spirit of their 'things impossible to do or say when drunk' theme, we've come up with our own LondonTown list which includes:

"Make mine a water"
"I'd better not drive, I've had a few" and
"No karaoke for me please"

In our experience, it's not just speech that gets impaired after a skin-full. The capacity to listen goes out the window too.

Still, don't let that put you off your merry making this Christmas, I'll see you down the Cross Keys for a midnight mass mulled wine.

Donkey Taxi

City workers could be forgiven for thinking the Nativity scene of the Christmas story was being acted out in the streets while they went about their daily commute recently. A donkey, called Demitris, was seen walking down the street in Bishopsgate but, instead of a pregnant lady, he was carrying a man in a bowler hat. Turns out it was nothing to do with Mary or the birth of Christ. Just The Real Greek drumming up publicity for their latest restaurant - and a stunt in support of animal welfare charity Corfu Donkey Rescue.

Closing Time at the Bar

Just when you thought things couldn't get much gloomier, we hear that sales of beer in pubs are now at their lowest levels in almost 40 years, that's since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Apparently 36 pubs are closing every week. In a bid to save the boozer, the people behind the 'Save the Pub' campaign have called on Kym Marsh (ex Hear'Say, married to that ex Eastenders actor) to pull a pint. That ought to do it. The British Beer and Pub Association is calling on the government to axe the beer tax and save our pubs. We say, do your bit and get drinking. Well, it is Christmas.

No Extension, Just Congestion

London's cyclists are up in arms over the scrapping of the western extension to the congestion charge. Boris has managed to offend the pedal pushers with his less-than-green policy. His defense? 'Listening to the people,' he says. Since when did that get you anywhere in politics? Not only that, cyclists have had a hat-trick of insults: first, motorbikes in bus lanes; second, slashing the borough cycle route budgets; and, for the final blow, this cycle-friendly western congestion charge fiasco.

All The World's A Stage

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ah, theatre for the masses - images of poncho-wearing Londoners scrabbling over limbs and briefcases whilst waving at their chums, who have managed to procure a patch of concrete on the piazza in Covent Garden to settle down (in torrential rain) to watch a bit of 'live' opera - on a screen! Let's not kid ourselves - this is not theatre for the masses; the bigwigs at the Royal Opera House are not throwing open its revolving doors and saying "Come in, take a seat, have a gin and tonic!" The people squashed together are OUTSIDE, IN THE RAIN and 'the masses' are mainly drama students and young professionals from Fulham who think it might be "such fun" to dabble in a tad of Tchaikovsky over their pink fizz and M&S snacks!

Lest we need any more convincing that our beloved London stage is decidedly not for the masses, the Evening Standard Theatre Awards (fanfare please) prove that what we're really dealing with is elitist, star-studded and starry-eyed theatre. I mean, who really wants Joe Bloggs from the North (we're not just talking North of the river) coming down to London with his rabble and touching the velvety seats of, say, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane with their very un-luvvie bottoms? Just imagine! No, no, it's best just to keep the riff-raff out and then rub the thesps up the right way with something they can understand - awards exclusive to London with Bollinger, canap�s and Dame Judi Dench. The ceremony against the glass backdrop of the Floral Hall at the Royal Opera House (where else?) is nothing short of glittering with a guest list that's like walking through Madame Tussauds, such is its profusion of Hollywood A-listers and serious actor types (did we mention Dame Judi?).

But the real dichotomy lies in the fact that we secretly love it! It's the exclusivity of it all that makes it attractive. The very fact that we can't get a ticket for love nor money (actually, if you really want to throw money at the problem you can re-mortgage your house and get a couple of tickets on eBay) turns the London theatre scene into another world that we can't quite touch but we can marvel at from afar. It comes as no surprise then that Michael Grandage and his Donmar came out on top at the Awards - 'Othello', 'The Chalk Garden' and 'Ivanov' all picking up honours. Kenneth Branagh was heard proselytising about Grandage's access for all programme but, in reality, it's impossible to get access unless you book ten years in advance. They then tantalise the drama students by releasing tickets on the day, which gives it a Charlie and his one-in-a-million ticket to the chocolate factory feel�if you're prepared to dream - "perchance to dream" as Hamlet or maybe Jude Law or David Tennant said - and get up at 6am to queue round the block, then you might just be in with a chance of witnessing a rare theatrical gem!

It's not just the audiences; from proper Shakespearean actorrrrrrr Charles Dance to veritable whippersnapper Josh Hartnett, the stars are falling over each other to get in on the act - or three acts if they can manage it. Of course, it's only a short Tube journey across town from White City for Mr Dr Who David Tennant and Kevin Spacey accepted his award for reviving the Old Vic (oh, what a fickle bunch those journos are) via video link; apparently he's just doing a film to pay for his theatre habit. So, it seems our West End is where it's at, not so much stage to screen but Hollywood A-lister to serious actor type (we're still not quite sure if Jude Law's going to make it!) What we do know is that find-a-star-for-an-Andrew-Lloyd-Webber-musical TV programmes are out and serious, electric, heart-stopping drama is in. So do anything; queue round the block, make an outrageous bid on ebay, climb through the window of the theatre toilet if you have to - anything for a golden ticket!

Gordon's Out of the Frying Pan�

The potty mouthed 'F-Word' two Michelin starred chef and face of Gordon's gin (phew), Gordon Ramsay is in hot water over an alleged affair with professional mistress Sarah Symonds. Lord Archer's ex and Ramsay's secret sidekick since 2001 is not just any old mistress, she's the lady who wrote the book on the subject - and then appeared on 'Oprah' to plug the weighty tome subtitled 'A Handbook For The Other Woman'. Even better is the News of the World headline: 'Cheat 'n' Two Veg'.

Down with Hip Hop

The question still remains of whether we will ever tire of ridiculing Boris. The problem we always face is that he comes up with such drivel on such a regular basis that we just can't help ourselves! The latest 'policy' - if you can call it that - is out with films and hip hop for youngsters and in with musical instruments that are laying dormant in people's homes�apparently. Of course, we wouldn't expect anything less from Boris's Victorian ways - he probably learnt how to play the lute at Eton - but there's really no need to inflict a city full of trumpet-honking children on the rest of us when all they really want to be doing is rapping in Trafalgar Square.

Alas, poor Andre!

Surely the furore about David Tennant playing Hamlet hasn't worn off to such an extent that the Royal Shakespeare Company has had to pull out another marketing ploy to get the attention back on their hot production. Nope, last time we checked it was all sold out so the only conclusion is that director Greg Doran thinks that using a real-life skull for the famous Yorick scene will add a certain grisly realism to Hamlet's lamenting. It's an interesting 'acting' debut for Polish pianist Andre Tchaikowsky, who bequeathed his skull to the Company for precisely this purpose - 25 years of lolling around in the props cupboard has finally paid off!

Surviving the Crunch

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

One advantage of these credit crunch times (there has to be one) is what was previously judged a bit stingy is now praised as clever budgeting. So if you fancy being horribly mean this Christmas you'll almost certainly get away with it. A mumbled 'credit crunch' as your excuse will suffice... and no fear of social exclusion.

Yes, we're tightening our belts for the worst economic downturn we've seen for thirty years. A bumpy ride is forecast. That hasn't, of course, stood in the way of some major retail expansion in the city - the opening of the Westfield, it could be argued, couldn't have come at a worse time. London's largest shopping mall may still fall flat on its face but the opening certainly sparkled with excitement and plenty of celebrity endorsed spending. The Sugababes cut the ribbon at Boots, Danni Minogue did Next while Erin and Twiggy took on shoppers at M & S and Mary Queen of Shops urged the crowd to 'go in and spend!'

Following the crunch-bucking trend, walking down Regent Street the other day I was struck by two major new shop openings - the enormous National Geographic store and, at the other end, the Ferrari shop. You could almost hear the fuel-injected engines revving up for its imminent launch behind the red hoarding boards. Doom mongers would have us believe these flagship retail giants will stand as testament to a by-gone golden shopping era come next year. But in the meantime you can enjoy one final shopping fling - bring on the bargains!

You only have to look around to see that London still has plenty of cut price offers and freebies to tempt us out - parks, art galleries and Alan Yau's �3.50-a-plate dinners all give us something to smile about, even when the coffers are close to empty. Artist Adam Neate, too, showed his benevolent side when he set around 1,000 art works free on the city's streets, just left them there for the taking. Lucky commuters must have thought Christmas had come early when, just going about their business, they picked up the priceless screen prints - which they soon put up on eBay at �1,000 a pop.

You can go out drinking for a pittance, too - if you avoid celeb hang-outs, red ropes and velvet carpets. To prove my point, those kind people at The Big Chill are offering a 'Charlie and The Chocolate Factory' style Golden Ticket throughout December. Instead of chocolate and ever-lasting bubble gum you get discounted drinks, money off meals and free festival tickets. There's nothing doom and gloom about that. Sure, you can take the Scrooge attitude if you're aiming to avoid bankruptcy but there are more imaginative ways of saving in the city this season.

Brits Sweep the Board at Emmys

London-born actor David Suchet - better known as Poirot to TV fans - scooped best actor at the Emmys for his portrayal of Robert Maxwell, the disgraced media tycoon. He called it an "unbelievable night for the Brits" when he and fellow actors dominated the recent US TV awards ceremony. Lucy Cohu, 37, who lives in Kensal Green, won the best actress category for her role in the harrowing drama 'Forgiven', about a suburban housewife who reports her husband for sexually abusing their daughter. 'Life On Mars' and 'The IT Crowd' also received Emmys for best drama and best comedy respectively, bringing the total number of trophies to a magnificent seven for the Brits.

Lily's Dad Shivers the Timbers in Treasure Island

Those talented Allens, you can't go out in London without bumping into one of them these days - well, Lily is featured in the free sheets daily and she's got a new album out early next year (make a nice change for being known for shooting her mouth off). Brother Alfie took centre stage when he replaced Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe in 'Equus'. Now it's dad's turn to take to the starring role, playing parrot-wearing pirate villain Long John Silver. That's right, the Vindaloo singing national treasure plays a convincing lead in 'Treasure Island'... shame, when we went along we couldn't help the feeling we were watching a school play.

Closing Time at Cafe Royal

After more than 140 years as one of London's top night spots, the Caf� Royal is officially closing its doors. Three other clubs in the vicinity - Paper, Dolce and Chinawhite - are also calling time at the bar along with the historic Regent Street venue. It's not all bad news, though - in place of these (arguably overpriced and snooty) celeb hang-outs there'll be a 160-bedroom five star luxury hotel and spa. Billed as, "the most ambitious redevelopment ever undertaken on Regent Street", the makeover will make the most of historic rooms that have played host to Oscar Wilde, Edward VIII and George VI in their time.

Boris v Jingjing

content@LondonTown.com — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Remember 'Goliath the Lion'? No, me neither. Apparently he was our mascot for Euro '96, but even Google struggled to find him, an image search eventually revealing an overweight pound-shop cuddly toy of quite astonishing charmlessness - a perfect match for our excruciating medieval-themed opening ceremony, and indeed for a couple of the players on that England team.

For London 2012's mascot, we have one option that would match Beijing's Jingjing the Panda for cuteness, but it might reduce our Capital's gravitas to admit that 3 million of us voted Boris the Floppy-Haired Spaniel into City Hall. Instead, the Olympic committee have launched a nationwide search for a new mascot, challenging design agencies to come up with a 'new concept'.

We're not helped, of course, by the fact that the only animals people really associate with London are pigeons and rats. An urban fox is a possibility, I suppose: a scrawny animal with a half-eaten kebab dangling out of its mouth would certainly be an honest animal to associate with Londoners, but it might not sell a huge number of soft toys.

There have been some poor mascots in the past - notably the appropriately named 'Whatizit' from Atlanta 1996, described by NBC sports anchor Bob Costas as 'a genetic experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong'. If the farce of London 2012's spiky pink logo is anything to go by, we could be in for a torrid time.

Banksy 'act of vandalism' graffiti to be removed

When is graffiti no longer an unwanted eyesore? Answer: when it's a Banksy original worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Still, that doesn't stop Westminster City Council from taking a scrubbing brush to the art work daubed on the side of the post office building on Newman Street. The reasoning behind the removal? "If you condone this then you condone graffiti all over London" is the rather lamentable justification.

New networking site for Londoners

Forget MySpace and Facebook, now Londoners can meet up online at the networking site 'Together for London' dot org www.togetherforlondon.org to share their thoughts and ideas about the city. Launched by Transport for London the featured campaigns are largely to do with travel - and being considerate towards fellow commuters on the Central Line. But there's ample message board space to have a rant about common irritants: people who play their music too loudly, shout into their mobile phones and, let's not forget, the free newspapers left lying about. 'Together for London' or 'Rant About City Living'?

Lots of entries for new Routemaster design

For those who didn't follow the London mayoral elections closely you could be forgiven for thinking that Boris got voted in on one issue alone: the promised return of the much loved Routemaster bus. In fact, the old open-platform buses aren't just being brought back, they're being built to a new design. Ideas put forward for the new design have flooded in with a competition offering �25,000 for the winner. There's an electronically-powered version, one with SatNav (let's hope it doesn't automatically divert to avoid traffic hotspots) and one with a 'smile', ah, say 'cheese'.

Soaps in Pole Position

content@LondonTown.com — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Picture the scene�

It's almost closing time at the Queen Wiktoria. After a hard day's work shifting slabs of concrete around the square, Piotr and Grzegorz pop into the Wic for a swift slug of Wodka. Exchange pleasantries with Paulina, whilst simultaneously avoiding the swish of her huge slate earrings, they order a couple of bowls of borscht and settle down at the bar. Suddenly, in bursts Jozef Przedzienkowski with a suspicious bulge under his bomber jacket� [cue theme tune] "Do�do�do�do�do-do-do".

Hooked? I thought you might be. Fear not, dear reader, for there's more where that came from.

Follow the mass exodus back to Poland, settle yourself down in front of the telly, twiddle the aerial until you get to TVP1 (you may need some Blu Tack to hold it in place) , and get ready for the next gripping instalment of 'Londynczycy' (aka 'Londoners') - Eastern Europe's alternative to Albert Square.

With a tagline of "Great Britain, Great Expectations", this televisual feast has been filmed on location in the capital - its scenes in Wembley, Soho and Victoria (the coach station) will, no doubt, show the city off in its best light. The storylines too (based around "true stories" gleaned from various chats with a group of immigrants living in Finchley) promise much�

"There is one scene where there is a girl looking at adverts in a shop window, and a few other Poles come up and say they can help her find a good job in return for �100."

Now, if that won't get you reaching for the Series Link button on Sky+ I don't know what will.

It was all looking really rather good (in a really bad kind of way), until I dug a little deeper. Apparently the baddies in 'Londynczycy' are all Poles - "Polish people [who are] screwing over other Poles".

Now, while it's nice to know that London has become the creative inspiration for TV producers around the globe (and that Victoria Coach Station is finally to get the cultural and dramatic recognition it deserves) I can't help but feel that we've been short-changed. If there's one thing (apart from fitting 17,000 sweaty commuters into a tube carriage the size of a Ford Fiesta) that we Londoners do well, it's the baddie-thing. We've got loads of them. They're everywhere. Londoners can screw each other over as competently as the next man (or "geezer"). Surely the creative types behind 'Londynczycy' are missing a trick if they don't make room for at least one "shady East End gangsta" whose role it is to loom mysteriously in the background under a flickering lamp-post, grunting, nodding and rubbing his chin intermittently before stubbing his cigarette out on a passing pram. It seems a tad unfair to allow the Poles to take all the glory. Besides that, there are literally lorry-loads of out-of-work (sorry "resting") London actors with bald heads, husky voices and over-developed pecs just desperate to work all hours for a pittance and a free lunch.

So, on behalf of all those thuggish thesps, I entreat you 'Londynczycy' - make space for a couple of brooding British bruisers. Go on, or we'll set Phil and Grant on you.

Mr Bubbles cleans up Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square's fountains played host to an impromptu foam party last week when 'Mr Bubbles' took bags of detergent, bubble bath and washing up liquid to the square. The prankster teenage art student is also known as Billzy on Bragster.com - a social networking which describes itself as 'Jackass meets Facebook'. While the authorities moaned about potential damage blah blah most Londoners saw the lighter side. We say better light hearted bubbles than the usual hard hitting headlines about teenagers and knife crime.

Cadbury to sponsor Olympics

It may not sound like a match made in marketing heaven but the news is that chocolate makers Cadbury's are putting down �20m-plus in sponsorship for the 2012 Olympics. The chocolates peddled by Cadbury's don't exactly have the same health credentials as your five-a-day but the two brands are keen to partner up. No doubt the millions from the Cadbury vaults helped to sweeten the deal.

London to have highest restaurant in Europe

At 288 metres tall London's Pinnacle skyscraper, nicknamed the 'Helter Skelter', is set to be the tallest building in the city, towering above the current leader Tower 42. Not only that, the new vertiginous office block set on Bishopsgate will also house what promises to be the highest restaurant in Europe. Those with vertigo will no doubt avoid the escalators to the eaterie which is set to give Rhodes 24 in Tower 42 a run for its money.

Chips too Chavvy for Chelsea

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

How do we explain the recent closure of 'Tom's Place', the ethical chippy in Chelsea, due to complaints from the neighbours about cooking smells?

Tom Aikens - for those of you who aren't interested in the latest developments in cooking with liquid nitrogen, food colouring and snail horns - is London's answer to Heston Blumenthal. He's a Michelin-starred master of experimental cooking and slightly ridiculous culinary perfectionism.

For all the multiple idiocies of the menu at his posh, eponymous restaurant in Sloane Square - a typical starter is "Anneau du Vic bilh and Lou Piccadou with pink fir and ratte potatoes, potato crisp and goat's cheese mousse" - his chippy, Tom's Place, was truly one of the nicest places to eat in the capital.

And the locals had it shut down! No consideration that those chunky chips were as close to culinary perfection as anything served by Le Gavroche. No matter that it was ethically impeccable (in the best David Cameron style, and incredibly unusually for even the best fish joint). No matter that it was run by a man regularly cited as one of the finest chefs in the world. And no matter that it smelt absolutely fantastic, with salt and vinegar the strong notes against a rich backdrop of batter. K & C's ladies-who-lunch are simply convinced that anywhere with a deep fat frier is going to lower their property values.

There was a similar incident a couple of decades ago when gourmet Indian pioneer Chutney Mary was nearly closed by the residents of Fulham, certain that any whiff of masala was certain to have lager louts vomiting their way down the King's Road.

Cultural commentators tell us that Britain's toffs have grown up - that we shouldn't be worried, for example, that fourteen of the Shadow Cabinet went to Eton because the upper class twit living in a world of nutty class prejudice is a thing of the past. Recent events in London's poshest area lead us to believe otherwise.

Marketing Boris

Has Boris finally got his ear to the ground, his finger on the pulse, his eye on the game of London life? No, no, it seems he's merely heard a rumour - must be lots of those abounding at City Hall - that Queens Market in Newham could be under threat from nasty redeveloper types. Of course, his daily cycle ride from Islington across the Thames doesn't take him into the London Borough of Newham, so he hasn't graced the stalls there with his Mayoral presence, but now he's resolved to have a look around - and he's commissioned a report. That's it, Boris, that's the sort of no-nonsense direct action Londoners are after!

So Last Season

If you want to know what Top Shop is going to be ripping off in the very near-future, you should have had your eyes glued to the catwalks at London Fashion Week. It's just happened by the way in case the interminable dullness of models at the Moet & Chandon Bar (haven't we been here before?), lots of people we've really never heard of ('Tatler' know who they are, apparently) and chat about safari-meets-seventies (something like that) passed you by. Still, for sheer hilarity we overheard that Pixie and Peaches (Geldof, presumably, but who knows) were in the 'cool crowd' and poor old Cilla Black had to share the catwalk with Naomi Campbell in the 'Fashion For Relief' show; that is before she stormed off somewhere�anywhere�with Moet.

Red Light for Gallery's latest show

With London's own sex shops and suspect after-dark alleys just round the corner in Soho, it hardly seems necessary to recreate another country's red-light district but it's all in the name of art y'know. The National Gallery is planning on installing the streets of Amsterdam - complete with prostitutes (not real ones) in doorways and behind lit windows - in its revered halls. The exhibition 'The Hoerengracht' will have a peek show feel to it - not leaving much to the imagination for impressionable young minds and shocking tourists and posh ladies and gents alike, who have merely popped in to see Sunflowers, mainly, by Van Gogh.

The London Restaurant Awards

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Sometimes the sheer choice of things to do in London is overwhelming. Restaurants are an excellent case in point. Even if you had Michael Winner's appetite and the enthusiasm of Jamie Oliver you'd still struggle to try a fraction of the eating out options in the city.

On top of this there's the prohibitive cost of a posh meal. At an average of �80 a head the top notch places aren't easy to afford - especially in these credit crunch times. Which is where the restaurant reviewer comes in handy - that elite bunch of well-fed journalists who get paid to eat Michelin-starred food. They fork out on the lobster so you don't have to and write with acerbic wit about the experience. A good review can make or break a new dining venture in this sprawling city. In fact, I'd guess that most Londoners spend more time reading where they should be eating than actually eating there.

Earlier this month the London Restaurant Awards gave the restaurant critics - Giles Coren and his cronies - the chance to put on a swish suit (with the obligatory expanding waistband) and listen to Jack Dee while some celebs told the assembled nominees who'd won. Like a fly on the wall (better than one in the soup anyway) I observed the evening's proceedings from the sidelines and even got some one-on-one time with the winners when they were brought backstage.

There were some curious non-foodie celebs there� as well as Jack Dee (no filming, no photos, please), Suggs from Madness gave out an award and some D-lister from Celebrity Apprentice (I've no idea who he was either) threw a hissy fit for not being recognised. I also spotted a Dragons' Den millionaire, a Spice Girl and Jimmy from Jimmy's Farm rubbing shoulders with a rugby player.

Le Caf� Anglais scooped a few awards but the real winners, for me, were the ones who remained civil despite their success. I was delighted to see the Great Queen Street gang getting an award, I've been there and can confirm that it is excellent and not just for the food - which is hearty, English and meaty - but also with the staff. When a friend who used to watch football in the place (before it went gastro) loudly lamented the loss of the TV screens the guy showing us to our table didn't flinch but politely agreed. That's manners.

It was also a delight to meet The Greenhouse maitre d' Jean-Marie who, despite the madness of the press room, made me feel he had all the time in the world. No wonder the restaurant won the Outstanding Service Award and the Award of Excellence. Appropriately, they were given the award by Silvano Giraldin, the outgoing and much-respected face of Le Gavroche, whose 37 years at the two-Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant have made him a legend within the industry. Asked what makes a good restaurant and they both agreed: the staff. With bosses like this you wouldn't mind putting in an extra shift.

One repeated theme of the night was the credit crunch (and this was before the Lehman Brothers bombshell) but most seemed unconcerned, convinced that if you offer quality food at the right price people will still happily pay for it. All this said with an award tucked under their arm, you can sort of see their point.

Scoring a Pointe

From prima donna to Maradona, or is that the other way round? The English National Ballet is mixing it up with some fancy footwork, a surge out of the wings or perhaps down the left wing and a bit of the old 'one-two' in a new show about our beautiful game - called 'The Beautiful Game - A Football Ballet' lest we're in any doubt. This is an historic timeline of great footballing moments, which could bring in a flood of new ballet fans as grown men are reduced to bitter and patriotic tears in the stalls over Gazza in the dentist's chair, Maradona's infamous 'hand of God' or Geoff Hurst's 1966 World Cup 'They think it's all over' goal. Can you please switch off your mobile phones and keep the 'who-are-ya?' chants to a minimum?

The Time Lord does Prince of Denmark

The hottest ticket in town this winter is David Tennant's 'Hamlet'. Well, it's technically the Royal Shakespeare Company 'Hamlet', arriving in London town from ol' Wills' birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon, but no one really cares if it's done by the RSC or the wannabes from X Factor; we all just want to see Dr Who Alas-ing poor Yorick! All 6,000 tickets sold out on the day booking opened with determined fans queuing round the block in the West End. It might help if David could replay the opening night a few times by jumping in a phone box�

Put your money where your mouth is!

This is decidedly not rock 'n' roll in the slightest. The famous tongue and lip symbol for The Rolling Stones has been sold to the V & A, that bastion of old relics (and no, we're not talking about the people who curate the collections). As if it's not enough that John Pasche's original drawing (which for nearly four decades has acted as a motif for rebellious teenagers, who want to cock a snook at the System) is now incarcerated in a museum, the �50,000 price tag is going to pay for school fees. Presumably - for fifty grand - at an institution where pupils join the choir, not a rock band�

No Smoking, No Ducks, No Barbecues

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The first to go were Shisha pipes, the exotic, sociable, bubbling way to take a massive hit of smoke without coughing, or smelling of anything worse than apples. Apparently, it's marginally less healthy than a Winehouse-scale crack binge, but it feels fine, and was becoming the chic way to meet friends without having to drink. The smoking ban killed it: you can still have shisha at outside tables, but this summer they might as well have suggested smoking underwater. All those lovely little cafes around Regent's Park and Shepherd's Bush, which sold mint tea, and ridiculously sweet honey-based snacks to go with your apple tobacco, are closing down for good - no doubt to be replaced by yet more branches of Starbucks.

The next blow came when the EU announced that the duck ovens used in Chinatown failed to comply with some health and safety directive or other. Now, I've eaten those ducks, those gorgeous, oily, crisp-fatted ducks, dunked in salty-sweet Hoi Sin, and there is nothing about them that could possibly comply with anyone's concept of health. There's been a stay of execution, announced this week, that has allowed Peking Duck to stay on the menu for now, but the most popular dish in Chinatown could well be on the way out soon, and with it most of the decent cheap restaurants in the West End.

And now - reported this week in Time Out - we discover that Korean barbecues are to meet the same fate as Chinese ovens. This, if you haven't yet encountered it, is a particularly inspired piece of traditional South-East Asian wackiness in which diners are brought a selection of marinated meats to cook at their own table. They've sprung up all over Soho, and make an inexpensive, sociable and relatively healthy alternative to Chinese food. Apparently the gas burners, made in Korea by some fabulously hi-tech corporation, and costing 500 pounds a pop, haven't been certified as safe, and so all these restaurants are going to have to close down.

I've already written about the smoking and drinking-on-public-transport bans, in a kind of abstract, doesn't-affect-me-but-what-about-the-poor-teenagers way, but this latest round of health-related meddling is starting to directly impact on my social life. If I wanted every coffee shop and cheap restaurant to be some identikit high street chain, I could go and live in the suburbs. The whole point of London, the reason we put up with the staggering rents, the Tube strikes and the charity muggers is the constant excitement of new discoveries, the compression of thousands of nations into an area the same size as Luxembourg, and the endless sparking of the new ideas against ancient traditions.

I would suggest that when an entire cuisine is being ruined by a rule, it's the law that needs to change, rather than the restaurant.

Boys and their Toys

If you think all those City boys are managing assets and closing high-end deals then you're wrong; what they're actually spending their long hours doing is melting down their Oyster cards and attaching the chip to their watches, so they can swipe in-and-out with their Tag Heuers. And all this with just a jar of nail varnish remover - imagine all the bankers queuing up at the cosmetics counter in the Boots on Cannon Street when they found out! The more Blue Peter option is to make a fairy wand with the chip inside and look as though you are getting through the barrier with magic�

London on the World Stage

London is obviously getting its finger out now that China has set the precedent with the most spectacular (and expensive and controversial) opening ceremony in history. Well, the advertising campaign to entice visitors to the capital in 2012 should do it�if the image of the globe with the Thames running across it didn't, unfortunately, remind people of the picture off the title sequence of 'EastEnders'. Still, at least the strapline makes the link: 'From the Mayor's Thames Festival to the Chelsea Flower Show, to the Notting Hill Carnival, there's a world of celebrations in London.' Catchy!

To be, or not to be�

Some dirty underground brickwork, apparently Tudor, is said to be the foundations of an east London theatre where Shakespeare himself was known to tread the boards. The site, somewhere in Shoreditch, was uncovered with much nodding of heads from archaeologists and ooh-ing from thespies like Sir Ian McKellen. Legend has it that after a spat with the landowner in 1599 (planning permission was still an issue back then!), the Lord Chamberlain's Men, which included Shakespeare, dismantled the theatre in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve and shipped the wood across the Thames - a bit of putting the pieces back together and the Globe was born!

The Olympics

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

It's hard to keep up with all the Olympic excitement - what with 'Super Saturday' followed closely by the imaginatively titled 'Super Tuesday', altogether a 'super' time was had by one and all. But no matter what the papers call it, there's no denying Team GB delivered a gleaming pot of gold that we could all get excited about. Cue rousing 'Chariots of Fire' music. As pay back for their sporting success these athletic heroes are getting an open-bus victory tour around London - as well as some major sponsorship deals and a pair of Jimmy Choos for that swimmer from Mansfield.

Londoners have been keeping up with all the action and podium news on big screens in Trafalgar Square and Canary Wharf, watching everything from air pistol shooting to synchronised swimming. We've lived through the highs: medals in cycling, rowing, sailing; and the lows: 14 year old diver Tom Daley and his partner Blake Alderidge squabbling, Paula sobbing and Andy Murray double faulting.

Even if you're not normally an avid arm chair sports enthusiast you can't help but get excited about the Olympics. The worldwide nature of the competition coupled with the fact it only happens once every four years inevitably mean the tension mounts and emotions run high. Flag waving, whooping (the audience) and tears (the competitors) soon follow.

I've noticed changes in my sport watching habits, I've become strangely gripped by activities I wouldn't normally bother with. At Athens four years ago weightlifting was the surprise attraction; seriously, don't knock it until you've tried it - well, watching it anyway. This time round it was ping-pong, and not just for the comedy value either. I was glued. It may have funny sounding names like whiff-whaff and flim-flam but table tennis is a serious sport, especially in the host country. Buoyed up by the crowd and struggling to keep up with the fast moving blur of a ball, it didn't take me long to see ping-pong's appeal.

But the excitement is not just about Beijing, the four-year build up to London hosting the games in 2012 has already begun. With the end of the closing ceremony in China the official countdown to 'our turn' begins. The spectacular opening party at the spaghetti-like Bird's Nest in Beijing and state of the art staging has set the bar high. Of course we know that 7,000 Morris dancers aren't going to match up but we're not going to let that stop us trying.

And we're trying quite hard. We've got a Zaha Hadid designed swimming centre, not to mention the 80,000 seat Olympic stadium and, casting aside concerns about 'but how much is this going to cost us?', we can even start looking forward to the sporting spectacle. Sure, we'll have four years of headlines concerned about budgets and targets, plus plenty of Boris bashing but in the end, even if it's a patch on what we've seen this time around, the Olympics in London will be well worth watching.

Fit for a Queen?

Ah, the fourth plinth debate! They do say that all publicity is good publicity so rumours that a statue of the Queen riding a horse (with Corgis?) - she would only be immortalised in cast iron after her death - could topple modern art off its pedestal are just the thing�Some arty type said that that it would be 'a great shame' if the art was stopped - next up is Antony Gormley's plan to have the plinth occupied 24 hours a day by members of the public, who can stand there for an hour 'being art' - but I wonder if anyone has asked Liz if she wants to join Nelson and the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

We're Sooooo Rock 'n' Roll

I thought 'being a rock star' had lost its cool in the 60s and 70s; that guitar-thrashing had been long ago replaced by moshing, but even that's a little bit 80s and perhaps nowadays it's all about the iPod disco. But apparently rocking still holds some street cred and the particular streets to frequent if you want to bump into an aging rocker or a modern day one having trouble opening his eyes (Pete Doherty) are those around Shepherd's Bush. Around 'the Bush' as the locals call it, there's one rock star for every 1,222 residents - the highest ratio in the UK - so move over Manchester (some upstarts called Oasis!), London's rocking.

Boris Takes off his Stabilisers

Oh, worry of worries. There has been some hoo-ha about a Tim Parker standing down from the post of First Deputy Mayor - he was meant to run Transport for London - but what concerns me is not whether he quit because he understandably couldn't be within a two foot radius of Boris or over some other political wrangling, but that, once again. Boris has sole responsibility for the Tube. He said that being personally involved was 'crucial to being an effective mayor' - that may be so but no one said anything about him being effective. Does anyone else see impending disaster down the track as officials jump ship, London grinds to a halt and Boris is left, alone, still smiling and still clueless?

Sandwiched Out

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

'The End is Nigh' or so it seems for those sandwich board men on London's busiest shopping streets. Traditionally used by doom mongers to warn the rest of us about the impending apocalypse, sandwich boards are shortly to meet their own untimely end. By mid August Westminster City Council plans to rid Oxford Street and Covent Garden of those unsightly signs - now more commonly neon coloured and informing shoppers of a bargain 'Golf Sale' just around the corner.

Placards on Oxford Street have been part of London's street furniture for more than 100 years. Granted they make the street look 'cluttered' - the justification for slapping them with a �2,500 fine - but so do plenty of other unsightly additions. Chewing gum, cigarette butts, people gobbing and, well� people in general. The 100,000 shoppers you have to dodge past just to get from one end of the street to the other are very un-feng shui. I suppose it would be ridiculous to ban them.

There are plenty more irritations that living in London entails - the 'Sinner, Winner' guy at Oxford Circus and the free newspapers thrust into your hand at the busiest public transport hubs are two that immediately spring to mind. But is the pole bearer - or the human advertisement - really the worst of them? And so bad, in fact, they need to make up laws to ban them?

I'd argue that they perform a public information service. OK, so you might not want to know where the 'Golf Sale' is but plenty of people do (or presumably the shop keeper wouldn't pay someone �4 an hour to stand there with a neon sign all day). Holding a board upright for eight hours a day while avoiding streams of stressed out shoppers hardly seems the most rewarding job but it's still work for plenty of people - most newly arrived in the country - keeping them off the streets, metaphorically at least.

Once, freemen of the city were granted such freedoms as being permitted to herd their sheep across London Bridge. Merrily they could swagger around the City with their sword drawn and get uproariously drunk without fear of arrest. Now we're not even allowed to stand in Covent Garden with a piece of cardboard strapped to our chests.

It strikes me that getting rid of the billboard-on-legs is just another case of the 'bah humbug' spirit that sees such innocent things as the sound of the ice cream van reduced to a mere four seconds. As if their seasonally affected wage wasn't precarious enough, ice cream sellers are - like the sandwich boarders - having their means of making a living swiped from under them.

Just think of the untold damage these kind of petty laws are doing to the city's entrepreneurial spirit. Next, we won't be able to buy an umbrella from a street stall that springs up in the middle of a downpour. Or those sugar coated roasted chestnuts will suddenly disappear. Then where will we be? Cold, hungry and sodden, that's where.

When you're dodging out of the way of the cut-price theatre tickets sign, stop, look and appreciate it - most likely this'll be the first time you've done this, if we're honest, as well as the last. What you're looking at may have little artistic merit, printed in an unremarkable font and could possibly be hand written in black marker pen. But just think, London will be a less colourful place without it. And now how are you going to know when the end is nigh?

Stars of Screen and Stage

London's theatres had more people through their doors in 2007 than ever before and this - cue a Royal Box full of reality TV stars with jazz hands - helped along considerably by tickets sold off the back of 'Grease is the Word' (you guessed it, finding Danny and Sandy for 'Grease') and that other terrible one 'Any Dream Will Do' for Joseph-wannabes. Surely Shakespeare is doing theatrical somersaults in his grave, or at least a soliloquy or two, to prove that London's theatre scene is indeed worthy of record-breaking praise but that all of London's a stage, above and beyond 'The Sound of Music'.

Could I See You by the Lake, 3pm?

Do you remember getting excited at school when your teachers said you could have a lesson outside? St James's Park recently hosted the grown-up version of this by setting up an al fresco office. It's all part of a campaign to get Londoners to make the most of the capital's outdoor spaces and we like the gimmicky 'nature' of it all but, in reality, no one ventures outside their stuffy offices to actually work - so they could have forgotten about the Wi-Fi and boardroom and just put out some more deckchairs.

Top Architects Choose Un-shaky Ground

Richard Rogers' Terminal 5 at Heathrow hasn't made the shortlist for this year's Stirling Prize, awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects, but perhaps it's for the best that this salt is not rubbed into that particular wound; labelling the sparkling-new, really rather large terminal architecturally attractive in some way could really send the Heathrow protestors over the edge. Much safer water is the nomination of the Royal Festival Hall for its iconic revamp, restoring it to its 1950s splendour and doing the South Bank proud in the process; it's the only older building in the running.

The Show Ain't Over 'Til the Fat Lady's on Page 3

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The first night of a new Royal Opera House season is, traditionally, an occasion when the wives of Russian oligarchs and top City bankers take the chance to show off their jewellery in the bar, sneer at each others' handbags in the toilets, and then sneak off in the interval, leaving a second-half audience of three octogenarian baronets snoozing in the stalls.

The eagerly-anticipated new production of Don Giovanni (eagerly anticipated by the half-dozen people who actually know anything about opera, anyway) at the Royal Opera House is going to be a little different. The only way to get hold of a ticket is to buy a copy of 'The Sun' on 30th July, and enter yourself in the lottery.

That's 'The Sun'. Home to Dear Deidre, Desktop Keeley (Google it), Page 3, and such noted opera critics as Jeremy Clarkson and Lorraine Kelly. The current top Arts stories on their website right now are 'Madonna in Meltdown', 'Brooke to Bare All for Playboy' and 'Miley May Strip for Film Role'. The most recent mentions of 'opera' in the paper have been about Britain's Got Talent's Paul Potts (fair enough, but it is a year since he won it), and 'Pamela Anderson goes bra-less for night out at Opera'.

The theory (based, I suspect, on watching the opera scene in 'Pretty Woman') is that if you get White Van Man and Essex Girl to come and see 'Don Giovanni' just once, they will immediately swap their alcopops for Chateau Lafitte, buy a Hampstead townhouse, take out an annual subscription to the ROH and start reading Gramophone magazine instead of 'The Sun'. The concept that people might choose not to go to the opera because it's expensive and a bit boring is obviously not one that has been much considered by Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas DBE and her merry band of trustees.

So when the show opens on 10th September, what can we expect in London's most magnificent auditorium? There will be lots of journalists from the 'Guardian' and the 'Telegraph' wandering around frantically looking for interviewees who work in chip shops, and there will be plenty of City gents and oligarchs who bought their tickets on e-bay. There won't be anyone who wouldn't normally have turned up, since asking your butler to pick up a copy of 'The Sun' is not a challenge that would tax the wit of even the most antique opera-lover.

I suspect, in fact, that this stunt is going to backfire spectacularly. For all its faults (intermittent truth-stretching, obsession with breasts, borderline fascism) 'The Sun' is completely compelling reading. I fear that rather than getting a whole new audience for 18th-century Austrian opera, we're going to see lots of broadsheet readers converted to the tabloids. And from there it's just a short step to being unable to head out to Opening Nights at Covent Garden because it's Big Brother Eviction Night on Channel 4.

Today's Rubbish News, Tomorrow's News on Rubbish

Here's a shocker - giving away millions of newspapers in central London is creating loads and loads of paper that's not being recycled. Commuters, after having the freesheets thrust into their hands (never mind the latte and briefcase!), are not seeking out recycling bins but scattering the newspapers they probably didn't want in the first place around town. The 70 bins were installed quickly enough when Westminster Council told The London Paper and London Lite that their distribution could be restricted but now it appears they're expecting them to be filled too.

On Tap

There's been a definite move to "just a glass of tap water please" in recent times but it now seems we can omit the "just" from that sentence in London restaurants as though we're apologising for ordering something that's free; obviously meaning it could never be as good as their glacial fresh-from-the-Schlatenkees bottled water. We snootily snub water, ice even, when we're in Europe, in case of a "jippy tummy" - it's as if we've always known that London's tap water is the only type to be trusted but now it's a fact; according to the people-in-the-know-about-water, it's the best in the country.

Four Years and Counting...

Word is out that our Ken (Livingstone, lest we forget) is looking for a job... nothing quite so ironic as Tony Blair becoming a Middle East envoy or as predictable as his recent attempt to take over the airwaves. Nope, it seems all he wants is his job in City Hall back. He'll have to wait till 2012 of course - just in time for the Olympics, so hopefully that'll take over from the rancour over bendy buses - but it appears Ken has already started an early campaign trail which involves, well, whining about Boris really.

Love All at Wimbledon

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Walking past Wimbledon Park you might think there's a big Cub Scouts' outing, or possibly a new solution to the housing problem. But check your diary and you'll soon realise that this is Wimbledon fortnight, two weeks of tennis championships when the whole country prays that Andy Murray won't pull out with a sore thumb� or knee� or back� or whatever and actually wins the whole major Grand Slam. Slam dunk.

Ah yes, the gentle twang of felted rubber on cat gut resounding over SW19 can only mean one thing, the annual tennis love-in is upon us. The new tented village populated with mad keen tennis fans has drawn comparisons to Glastonbury, though presumably without the Hare Krishnas and LSD. But that aside, the temporary tented home to hundreds of tennis nuts has done away with one Wimbledon tradition - the queues.

As much a part of the famous tennis tournament as the covers going on, strawberries and cream, and seeing Cliff Richards in the stands, the lengthy queues are quite legendary. But this doesn't mean they'll be missed.

This year, those waiting to get into the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club had another surprise in store, Amanda Holden showing them her knickers. That Athena poster has a lot to answer for. Apparently, the 'Britain's Got Talent' judge had been getting lessons from our old sporting hero Tim Henman, especially for the event - well, now that he's hung up his trainers he's got sod all else to do.

Even if you don't like tennis for the other 50 weeks of the year, Wimbledon still manages to excite the crowds. Not only can you see some world class action, it's also a great excuse for putting your feet up and watching a bit of telly. So what if you don't know what 'deuce' means, there are plenty of other things to look at. For the men, there's an abundance of long legged, taut and toned tennis totty to keep them glued to Centre Court. Female watchers are well advised to keep an eye on Rafael Nadal. His bicep hugging sleeveless tops may not be to my taste but I have girlfriends who admit to melting at the mere flex of his upper arms.

When I was at Queen's the other week, for example, a friend recounted how she bagged herself one of Nadal's wristbands when he flung it, post-match, into the crowd. Slightly embarrassed, she admitted that - after one too many Pimms - she'd elbowed aside old ladies in her desperation to bag his soiled sweat band, shouting "It's mine!". But she still has it. Framed. Surprisingly, it doesn't smell of BO, or so she assures me.

All the South Bank's a Stage

The South Bank of the Thames is set to get another theatre to add to its already flourishing arts scene - the National, Old Vic, Young Vic, Royal Festival Hall and Shakespeare's Globe provide an impressive line-up of venues but there are big plans afoot to transform County Hall into the Greater London Theatre. Used to staging farces in the time when the Greater London Council resided there, the new arts centre will have to put on a good show to compete with its prestigious neighbours but with new writing and outdoor productions on the agenda, it's already got the bohemian spirit going on.

Computer Crash

We all know that Facebook has the potential to cause trouble, whether it's being 'poked' by your ex or photos of that drunken office party being 'tagged' to all and sundry, but this really is taking it to a whole new level. Police officers (18, no less) joined a Facebook group called 'Yes, I've had a polco!' - polco, obviously, standing for police collision - and posted photos and messages about their spectacular crashes. Disciplinary action has been taken with four of them given 'words of advice' - presumably, something about road safety in London and how car crashes aren't really that funny. Surely that was covered early on in their careers.

Certainly Modern, but no Tate for Battersea

For those of us who love the industrial look of Battersea Power Station (me! me!), the thought of turning it into something resembling a rocket launch pad (meant to be a glass chimney, I think) makes us turn our noses up at the newness of it all. That the building will produce renewable energy is bandied around to get us all on side but this is really just to cover up the 'mixed use development' (shudder) that the businessmen are planning - a hotel, luxury apartments, shops, even a Tube line going straight into the building. What's wrong with art galleries in disused power stations, anyway?

Miller Puts the Heat on Tennant

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Amusing theatrical fossil Jonathan Miller has been in the papers this week, attacking West End theatre producers for their 'obsession with celebrity', after they chose to go with David Tennant and Jude Law for two forthcoming productions of Hamlet, instead of his latest prot�g�.

Commentators have focussed on his snooty dismissal of Tennant as "That man from Doctor Who", and overlooked the fact that Miller is, of course, completely right. If you can't make an Event of a production, then your show is pretty much doomed. If you want a hit on your hands, you either need a Doctor Who star (Hamlet, Treats, Under the Blue Sky) or to break some major sexual taboos (Blackbird and That Face, for example, which consisted entirely of characters screaming at each other as if they were in a nightmarishly extended Eastenders family scene, but still pulled in the crowds with their whiffs of incest and paedophilia).

But everybody knows whose fault this is, and it's not "celebrity obsessed" producers or audiences. It's Jonathan Miller, and all the other critics, directors, actors and assorted Groucho Club regulars who spent the entire 80s and 90s whinging about the lack of subsidies for theatre. They finally got their money a decade ago, and the result is that you'd have to be completely insane to watch a serious play in the West End.

Gloomy edifices like the Palace Theatre feel like sets in some site-specific Victorian nightmare play, rather than places intended for public enjoyment. Bottlenecks in the crowds mean that by the time you've left your seat in the interval, you're obliged to go back in. Low-ceilinged corridors and Grade I listed plumbing ensure that there's a lingering smell of toilets in all public spaces. And the tickets cost about fifty quid. Who on Earth is going to put up with that unless there's a Hollywood star and at least ten song-and-dance numbers?

Compare this with a trip to the National Theatre, the Young Vic, the Menier, or any of the other Lottery-funded venues, and you'll see why nobody goes to see drama in the West End. Chic bar areas, beautiful restaurants, riverside terraces for the smokers, free music, and the chance to spot crusty old celebs like Jonathan Miller sipping gin and tonics and saying how Chekhov was much gloomier back in his day. It all adds up to a far superior experience. For a tenner, if you book at the right time.

So if Miller wants to rescue his beloved West End from musical remakes of classic movies (woo!), jukebox shows based on clapped-out boybands (yay!), and Jude Law (phwooar!), then he's going to have to accept the closure of his beloved National. Or just stop moaning, and enjoy the most brilliantly varied theatrical city in the world.

You're Hired!

As if we're not all still reeling from our great city being run by an over-sized public schoolboy (yes, Boris, that's you), Labour must feel that they have to do something�anything to overshadow Ken's defeat. And they have! There have been some mutterings that Sir Alan Sugar could be asked to stand in the 2012 elections - maybe Ken just wasn't quite controversial enough and some well-timed bursts of 'You're fired' reverberating around City Hall will provide the edge Labour needs.

Up, Up and Away!

If you happen to see a 75 metre-long white bubble floating above the Thames out of the corner of your eye, aliens are not arriving in London. It's just a German airship. It's certainly one way of seeing the sights with an hour-long flight taking passengers from the airfield in Upminster over to Buckingham Palace and back, but there's only a small window of opportunity to climb aboard in July and August as the airship can't fly in bad weather. And we thought the Tube was unreliable!

You can't judge a book by its cover anymore�

Gone are the days of spending hours browsing bookshelves for the right tome to take on your summer hols. Soon, it could be rather like going into Starbucks and ordering a coffee. The aptly-named Espresso Book Machine does exactly what it says on the tin - it prints books in seven minutes (okay, not quite as quick as a skinny latte!) - and it could be coming to a Blackwell bookshop near you. With the penchant nowadays for putting coffee shops in bookstores, it could be a case of 'Espresso or War and Peace, madam?'

Booze Banned on Buses

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

For Marcel Proust, it was the taste of a Madeleine cake that drew him irresistibly back into reveries of his childhood. For me, and many other Londoners, it is the smell of alcohol on the bus. It's not quite as romantic as Marcel's memoires de temps perdus, but the heady, sticky smell of a bottle of alcopop, combined with gentle swaying motion of the top deck, creates an instant jog of memory to giggly teenage journeys into the West End.

At this fledgling stage, we couldn't afford the drinks in the bars, so we had something on the way there instead, and great fun it was too (certainly more enjoyable than the later part of those evenings, which generally involved standing in Zoo Bar being leerily chatted up by middle-aged drunks).

Boris Johnson's official line is that banning booze on buses and trains is a 'zero tolerance' crackdown on 'intimidation'. He seems to believe that the worst thing about public transport is the sight of a sleeping tramp cradling a Special Brew, or a group of tittering middle class schoolgirls, proving how grown-up they are by drinking bottles of WKD.

Aggressive drunks on buses and trains are, of course, a real nuisance, and it would be lovely to get rid of them. But the tube and bus drivers' union have already said that their members get more than enough grief in the course of their duties, and they certainly won't be enforcing this new rule when they don't fancy it. In other words, they'll happily tell groups of harmless teens to put their booze down, but when it's a squad of skinheads in Chelsea shirts necking Stella and vomiting on the seats, they'll develop a sudden blind spot.

So just when teenagers have been granted the right to travel for free, they're having one of the great joys of teenage travel removed. It'll be back to sitting on benches in Leicester Square for the pre-Zoo Bar drink, until someone bans that too.

Spitting DNA Images

Bus Drivers are to be given DNA kits to help catch people who spit at them, in a repulsive, but probably very effective initiative to reduce anti-social behaviour. The 'spit kits' (yuck!) are already in use at Tube Stations, where recent delays have created something of an epidemic of bad-tempered spitting incidents. All 7,000 busses in the London fleet are to carry the kits. Hopefully, they won't come up with a new verse for 'The Wheels on the Bus' to describe them.

Livingstone Radio Show

It's a long tradition for talk radio hosts to divide their audiences, usually by being outrageously right-wing. LBC's latest pundit, however, will be infuriating listeners from the other half of the political spectrum, in the three-hour-a-day Red Ken morning special. The former London mayor describes his show as an opportunity to 'detox' after listening to the poisonous Nick Ferrari.

EU Ban for False Quotes

Ever wondered why the dreadful musical you went to last night had such glowing reviews on its billboard? It's because of a popular practice known as 'cherry-picking' in the PR world, or 'lying' to everyone else. Classic examples include the review of Guys and Dolls: "Frank Loesser's great musical from 19560 is hilarious� Grandage's production often falls flat", which appeared on the billboards as "'HILARIOUS', Independent on Sunday". The practice is being outlawed by new EU directives, so promoters are going to have to find some new way to cheat us out of our money.

Same Again?

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Usually, receiving an invitation to a free lunch would be a good thing - don't let anyone tell you there's no such thing. Free food satisfies both the glutton and the spendthrift in me. But this week a beautifully designed invite to the opening of 'The Lawn' didn't prompt the usual drools of anticipation, quite the reverse.

The reason? 'The Lawn', a re-vamped restaurant at the delightful Fulham Palace is about to be Oliver Peyton-ed. While I have nothing against the man himself - don't take it personally, Oliver, I'm sure you're a lovely guy - what really upsets me is that this beautiful caf�, a favourite haunt of mine, is going the same way as the rest of the UK high street. By that I mean the taking over of the chains.

As far as I'm concerned, they might as well be replacing this beautiful and historic drawing room, the place where the bishops of London have taken tea for centuries, with a Starbucks. As one identikit high street looks so much like the next it can be hard to know where you are. It's especially confusing for people of my parents' generation who can often be found wondering in circles.

While Oliver Peyton doesn't have the same 'one on every high street' saturation as that ubiquitous US coffee shop chain, his name is attached to a string of eateries in the capital, all of a certain type. Somerset House, Inn the Park, Meals at Heals and two restaurants at the National Gallery all come under the Peyton & Byrne machine. Once again, we're in danger of getting the same old thing all over again. It's ironic that the bloke who started out as groovy party guy and owner of Atlantic Bar & Grill has gone all tea and cake at some of the city's most established old haunts.

What I don't understand - and object to the most - is why change what is already operating quite effectively as a much loved and popular caf�? Delicious cakes and indulgent muffins are successfully served from the existing caf� at Fulham Palace with no branding or marketing necessary. For the past few years, this high ceiling-ed drawing room has been my secret hideaway, a place where I could pretend I'd been invited for tea by someone posh. Now, I fear, the Peyton machine is about to invade that privacy and take away what I love about the place.

I experienced the worst aspect of Peyton-isation first hand the other day when I went to Manchester Square for an idle Saturday morning wandering around the lovely Wallace Collection - possibly my all-time favourite way to wile away an hour or so on the weekend. Pausing for a quick cup of tea and a croissant in the glass atrium restaurant run by (you guessed it) Mr Peyton, I was shocked when the bill for two came to a whopping �10. For two teas and two second rate croissants. And we had to ask three times before being served. It was enough to put me off coming back� ever.

It's not just Oliver Peyton who's at it (see, I told you it wasn't personal). Gordon Ramsay is just as bad. The agitated chef is obviously on a one-man mission to turn the capital into one big Ramsay themed restaurant. You're not safe, even if you get out of the country. On your escape you'll find his Plane Food at the new terminal 5 and then get more of the same in New York and Paris - it's as if he's spread via Heathrow over to the US and France.

What I want to know is, how can he be in all those kitchens at once? And if he can't be (which he can't, for obvious reasons) then are you really getting a 'Ramsay' meal in one of his restaurant? Or are you just paying for the name? Or possibly to see what all the fuss is about. Probably to have a gawp at who else is eating there while you're at it.

A small victory was celebrated when the Hayward threw out Starbucks in favour of a more individual caf�, a late licence and even some live music thrown in. What a mis-match that Starbucks was for an art gallery that prides itself on pushing boundaries and one which regularly shows the very best international contemporary art.

This is exactly the kind of anti-big brand backlash I would like to see extended to our national properties and parks. Boycott yet another identikit caf�, rescue us from repeat edition restaurants. It may be too late for our high streets but the city's national institutions should be saved from the same old, same old.

Don't Banksy on it

Bristol-based graffiti artist Banksy made his name by avoiding the limelight. Notoriously shy when it comes to identifying himself, it's surprising that he put on such a public display as the Can Festival. For the graffiti fest under Waterloo station - in a tunnel owned by Eurostar - Banksy invited a bunch of his fellow urban artists to redecorate the place. Perhaps more criminally, the Tate Modern's current street art show, displayed on the outside of the former power station, doesn't include a single work by Britain's best loved graffiti genius.

Cult is a dirty word

It is, apparently, an offence to hold up a placard with the word 'cult' on it. That was the 'insult' objected to when a 15-year-old boy stood outside the London headquarters of the Church of Scientology. He held aloft a sign which read 'Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult' and was duly handed a summons for it. Valiantly and intelligently fighting his corner, the youngster fired back that a court ruling by a family judge in the High Court in 1984 had described Scientology as a "cult" (while also calling it "corrupt, sinister and dangerous"). Sadly, this wasn't enough to preserve his right to peacefully protest. Later, charges were dropped.

Who let the dogs out

Even if you've never been to Walthamstow dog track you'll be sad to learn that it's due for redevelopment, leaving just two dog race tracks in the capital, at Wimbledon and Romford. The 'gentrification' of the area - a more genial sounding word than homogenisation - will no doubt see the track, an essential East End experience since 1933, turned into yet another modern building block. The final greyhound race will be run in mid-August and the track handed over to its new owners on September 1st. Get there before the place goes to the dogs.

By George

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

On St George's Day I woke up to the good news that Gordon wants us all to do a bit of flag waving for our patron saint. Usually the only time you see large scale waving of the red on white St George's cross, is during the World Cup - you can't get away from it then, hanging from every other house and fluttering out of car windows. I'm all in favour of reclaiming the flag from unruly football fans but I think Gordon could do more. Doesn't St George deserve a public holiday? Or more accurately - because how much use is a day off to a long-dead saint - don't we?

I've dutifully signed the online petition and am waiting to see if online petitions ever get you anywhere. Still waiting� Cynics may reasonably argue that backing St George's Day as a Bank Holiday has little to do with national pride and more to do with getting an extra day out of the office. And they'd be mostly right. But there's a bit more to it than that. It's also about pondering what it means to be English at a time when we're not sure what that really it's all about. Importantly, it's also an excuse for a jolly old knees-up - something the English are very good at.

Like most English people (well, I'm half English but who's counting) I'm not usually one to celebrate the old Turkish dragon slayer - more of us mark Guy Fawkes than St George's Day, apparently. But, in the interests of research, I went along to the mayor-backed celebration of Englishness in London's Trafalgar Square, a tasty showing from traders more usually found at London's larder, Borough Market.

Looking like it'd be a wash-out (very English), I set out with an umbrella (English too) only to discover it turned out nice again (even more English). Among the very English entertainment were nattering old ladies brewing tea, green grocers selling books by the pound (lb not �) and a giant compost heap, all over-looked by an ice cream van. Best of all were two men in bow ties, centre stage, doing a hilarious musical recital which included very un-PC lyrics about blowing up aeroplanes with bottles of Evian. Brilliant. If having St George's as a day off means we can do more of this kind of thing then I'm signing up right now.

I couldn't help noticing, with a wry smile, how few people visiting the market - aside from the traders - who were actually sporting any kind of St George's cross - I counted three. Mainly they were baffled tourists queuing up for a bit of food. So it seems there's more raising awareness work to be done.

In a bid to beef up George's profile - bet Boris wishes he had this PR machine behind him - English Heritage has waded in on the subject, producing a 'Top Celebration Tips' guide to the saint's day. Dragon chasing, eating very English food - try chicken tikka masala - and downing essentially English drinks - lashings of ginger beer or a good old fashioned pint - are among the recommended ways to celebrate. It sounds as incongruous as the Famous Five having an awfully exciting adventure slaying fire breathing mystical creatures on Brick Lane. But the fun doesn't stop there, English Heritage has even commissioned an 'Ode to St George'. 'The True Dragon', a kind of 'Jerusalem' for today, with its wistful pondering on 'England's valley full of light', brings a patriotic tear to the eye. Oh go on Gordon, you're a Scot, you must understand how much we need a day off for Eng-er-land.

Handbags at Dawn

It's been a tough few weeks for BAA, not to mention the unfortunate holidaymakers who thought they'd be jetting off from Heathrow's shiny new Terminal 5. As we mentioned last month, it's always been a controversial project with green protestors and people from Hounslow (living under the flight path) but add 28,000 misplaced bags and Naomi Campbell throwing a strop in first class and you've got, well, utter chaos really.

Brucie Bonus!

Ah, the Palladium and Bruce Forsyth. It's like the Globe and Shakespeare, Buckingham Palace and the Queen, Ken and City Hall�it was definitely "nice to see" him back at the theatre where he became a household name with 'Sunday Night at the London Palladium'. This time, though, he was receiving a BAFTA - a Fellowship award, no less - following in the eminent footsteps of Morecambe and Wise and Charlie Chaplin and with Dame Judi smiling on. What a night for our Bruce!

Just a Plane Tree

We know this is Mayfair - London's poshest postcode - but the fact that a tree has been valued at �750,000 puts the predicted property crash in perspective. The plane has stood in Berkeley Square since Victorian times and it's very nice and all but maybe using the capital asset value for amenity trees system is going a little too far� Still, we don't want those nightingales to stop singing!

Back to the 80s

content@LondonTown.com — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The French always have to go one better, don't they? We had Konnie Huq and some burly men in tracksuits introducing the new Olympic sport of the 100 metre dash-and-beat-
up-a-hippy. It was pretty exciting stuff as our Konnie nearly had the torch wrestled off her, just as she was struggling through to the finish line.

In Paris, on the other hand, they first had riot police smashing batons into hundreds of protestors. Next, they had to extinguish the torch and put it on a bus. Finally, in a scene that could have come straight out of a Luc Besson movie, rollerblading, wall-scaling Green party members managed to hang an enormous Free Tibet poster off City Hall, forcing them to abandon the ceremony that was supposed to take place at the end of the torch's journey.

(Incidentally� extinguishing the torch so that it could go by bus? Surely that isn't quite right? As far as I can remember, the idea was that they lit the thing in Greece, and then it passes the spirit of the Olympics on to a fire that burns all the way through the games. Surely when they light the big flame in Beijing, it's not going to be the sacred spirit of the Olympics burning there, it's going to be the sacred spirit of the French safety matches they used to relight the thing.)

It's been a good month for protestors throughout the Capital. The airport expansion lot got their extra publicity from Terminal 5 going tits up, and every child in the Capital is getting a free holiday as the teachers seem to be set on a proper one-day walkout. Along with the fact that people actually seem to care about an election, it's like the 1980s nostalgia thing has slipped over from music and fashion into politics.

Blair is Drawn

Not really the kind of portrait Cherie Blair would want to look at over her morning cup of coffee - her husband looking decidedly worn out and preoccupied, as though the years in office have been etched into his face. Lucky, then, that the official portrait by Phil Hale will hang in the Houses of Parliament - a stark warning to Mr Brown, perhaps, and maybe an attempt by Tony to retouch his image?

Curry Crisis

One thing that you're guaranteed if you head to Brick Lane is a curry; a choice of freshly prepared, spicy, delicious curries, at that. But now it seems London's Indian chefs ensconced in kitchens up and down the "Curry Mile" could be under threat. Not only is there a worldwide shortage of rice (how can you have a curry without rice?), but new immigration rules could make it harder to recruit Indian chefs. Surely Britain will never stand for that!

Passage to India

Forget Paris and Brussels, that's sooooo last season! The latest train ride to do is the 23-day one from London to Bangladesh, being described as "the world's greatest railway journey" by er� people who love trains. By the time you get there you'll have pretty much have used your annual leave for the entire year and there are some security concerns on the Iran-Pakistan border (apart from the fact these lines still need to be linked) but, hey, you'll see a lot of countries whizzing past.

How do You Solve A Problem Like Medea?

content@LondonTown.com — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It's always difficult to take actors' union Equity seriously, because their president is Harry Landis, better known as Felix, the genial Jewish barber from EastEnders. You keep expecting press statements to be interrupted by Grant Mitchell bursting in and accusing him of being a pervert.

This may be the reason why the demand for an increased minimum wage for West End actors has been ignored - the theatre companies were probably too busy asking what happened to his burgeoning romance with Blossom Jackson to listen to Felix's demands, and now a West End actors' strike is on its way.

Equity want a 44% hike in their minimum wage, which does sound a bit above the going rate at a time when many theatres are tightening their belts. But the actors are currently on �381 a week, which will keep you going for about 20 minutes in London, if you're really good with money (and if there are any actors in London who are good with money, I've yet to meet them).

It's the age-old problem of industries where the children of the rich are prepared to work for free. Practically all the work in publishing and journalism, for example, is now done by squads of indistinguishable Tarquins and Jemimas, doing 6-month unpaid internships and living on their parents' money. Equity are just trying to stop their members being undercut by egregious floppy-fringed Etonians with flats in Pimlico.

But the problem is that the theatre companies are as skint as their actors - and one of their biggest expenses is paying large casts for big productions. The only way to get a new show time to bed down in the West End is to publicise it with a six-month dose of reality TV: fine for big names like 'The Sound of Music' and 'Grease', but I'm not sure ITV's Saturday night audience is ready for 'Whom the Gods Would Destroy, They First Make Mad: the Search for a New Medea'.

So the choice seems to be between giving in to Equity's demands, which means a West End entirely populated with stage remakes of American movies, or replacing all our actors with chinless wonders from the Home Counties. Personally, I think I'm just going to start going to the cinema more.

Carry On London

Fifteen years after the travesty of 'Carry On Columbus', the creaky slapstick series is being revived yet again for Carry On London. The film is to be set in the capital and they're getting over the death of almost the entire original Carry On crew by hiring a new generation of� er� stars, including Shane Ritchie and Swedish glamour model Victoria Silvstedt. Oooh, matron, ding-dong, etc, etc.

Death Sentence for Death Metallers' Home

It's been a long time coming, but the death sentence has finally been officially sounded for The Astoria. Somebody at London Transport has decided that Tottenham Court Road station is just too horrible (fair enough), and will have to be extended into the space currently occupied by the legendary rock venue (not fair at all. Why couldn't they have used that horrible chippie on the corner instead?). There are plenty of new venues springing up in London, so the bands will be alright, but we're worried for the teenage metallers from the Home Counties, who've traditionally gathered on the Astoria's steps, and who are quite unhappy enough already.

Black Comedy

The highly anticipated West End show 'God of Carnage', starring Ralph Fiennes, Tamsin Greig and Ken Stott, had a true first night nightmare, as the assembled press were treated to a powercut. Having re-rigged the lighting and switched to an emergency generator, they managed to continue in semi-darkness - and got some excellent reviews for their trouble.

Flight Fantastic

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This month we got a glittering new airport - well, terminal but who's counting? Designed by one of our most lauded architects and opened by Her Majesty the Queen. Drum roll, please. Yes, Heathrow Terminal 5 is upon us. Rejoice! Or maybe not. Those in the flight path and Heathrow protestors - not to mention the people living under the melting ice caps - might be forgiven for being less jubilant.

Before nose-diving into a frenzied recycling episode in a desperate attempt to compensate for all those extra emissions, I comforted myself with a closer inspection of the gleaming beauty of Rogers' new structure. Much has been made of its modernist and pioneering feats. It's the first straight-through check-in (which makes me wonder why all airports aren't built this way), the first project of this scale delivered on time and on budget - Google 'Wembley Stadium' for an example of what happens when the opposite is the case - and you can check yourself in online; goodbye surly check-in lady.

Gone too are the seemingly endless miles you have to schlep from check-in to gate number 101. Here, the planes come to you - for all but one fifth of passengers, the remainder of whom have to get the bus. For most, when the pilot announces over the intercom that your aircraft is 'taxi-ing' to the airport now at least the word makes sense.

Accusations of the new terminal - the size of 50 football pitches - being one giant shopping mall are music to my ears: Tiffany's, Harrods and Paul Smith are all setting up shop in the place with Gordon Ramsay providing the 'Plane' food (geddit?) and McDonalds' golden arches nowhere to be seen. The message is clear: ignore the doom and gloom financial headlines predicting frantic belt-tightening times ahead: come, fly, shop, spend! Everyone knows killing time between check-in and take-off is best dedicated to duty free shopping - go on, it's as if the sales are on.

Cut-price electrical goods and cheap cosmetics aside, the new T5 will increase passenger numbers, though perhaps not in their droves; we have to open up a new runway for that. Without the third landing strip, Heathrow's crown as "busiest international airport in the world" will slip in the next three years. And that's a bad thing?

One frightening statistic puts the CO2 emissions from the proposed additional flights from Heathrow's third runway at the same level as the whole of Kenya. That's a whole country. A whole country that's a whole two and a half times the size of the UK. From just one of our airports. Hardly something to be proud of.

Describing the new terminal as "a living, breathing advertisement for Britain's ambition," in the words of Mr BAA big wig, gives a clue as to the chief motivating factor. This shiny, new monument to modernism clearly has plenty to do with our nation's desire to be the biggest and the best - borne out of an outmoded "Britannia rules the waves" mentality. We're not as mighty as we once were, so what? This "mine's bigger than yours" attitude should logically stop when it comes to noisy, dirty, polluting air travel.

It's as if those politicians instrumental in deciding environmental policies have got together, looked at the figures and concluded: stuff the protestors, stuff the emissions, stuff global warming - there's too much hype about that anyway. So the result is our glorious new airport terminal. For many foreign visitors the first thing they'll see when they land in our country is this magnificent Pompidou-esque glass and steel structure, the first impression will be one of "ambitious Britain, proud to be the world's worst aviational polluter, bar none". Oh and the shopping's good too, if only I had some money to spend.

Some Solace for Latest Bond Flick

The latest Bond movie, partly being shot at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire since November last year, has been given its official title: 'Quantum of Solace'. A reference to Bond's broken heart (reference the final scene of 'Casino Royale', the most recent Bond movie). More interesting snippets from the set include a quote from Mathieu Amalric, playing the villainous Dominic Greene, who told reporters his character had "the smile of Tony Blair and the crazy eyes of Nicholas Sarkozy". A more frightening prospect than Jaws' murderous metallic teeth we think.

Election Fever

No, we're not talking about Barack and Hilary, we've got election fever of our own. Though admittedly not as headline grabbing, London's mayoral race is hugely significant for the city's inhabitants. On May 1st we'll find out who wins the battle of Bumbling Boris vs (allegedly) Corrupt Ken. Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, firmly in the Ken camp, has been busy rubbishing Boris' transport proposals, "Boris Johnson's transport policy is in tatters given this extraordinary underestimate of the cost of his bus policy by �100m a year," Kelly said in response to Johnson's plans to bring back Routemaster buses. Great idea, Boris, as long as the maths add up.

Spitfire Sparks Fly

A group of RAF men gathered in Trafalgar Square this month with a full-size replica Spitfire. Their point? To highlight the lack of recognition of neglected RAF hero Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park. They've got their eye on the square's fourth plinth, currently filled with a piece of contemporary art - 'A Model for a Hotel' at present - changing every year or so on a rotational basis. With the other three plinths filled by Army and Navy figures it would be fitting, they argue, to have an RAF hero to stand alongside. Keith Park, the man proposed, played a pivotal role in saving the country from a Nazi invasion in the Battle of Britain. Honouring him is "a matter of national honour", they believe.

Dark, Satanic Turnmills

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It has been some years since I had to consider how my feet would feel after dancing from midnight until dawn when choosing my shoes. But the news that Turnmills was to close so soon after the King's Cross Goods Yard clubs (Canvas, The Key, The Cross) still came as a shock. About half of London's major all-night clubs have disappeared in the space of three months.

It's hardly surprising that these labyrinthine venues are shutting their doors: my generation is now much happier sipping cocktails somewhere salubrious than bouncing around in a former factory, and the young, so I'm told, think that electric guitars are the future.

Nobody is going to much miss those chillout rooms full of sleazy dreadlocked men offering massages to anyone in a skirt, or the stench of sweat on the dancefloors, nor yet the music that had been carefully subdivided into 1000s of indistinguishable sub-genres with names like Darkcore and Dubstep. In any case, you only have to hop on a plane to Eastern Europe if you want to experience a place where these phenomena still flourish.

Yet there is much to regret about the slow death of dance music in the capital, not least the stunning buildings that housed these clubs. There was something very special about the way that going out in London meant a descent into the bowels of our city's industrial heritage. Turnmills is an extraordinary Victorian edifice, while the Goods Yard clubs were housed in a set of arches and warehouses that still remembered the days when the Industrial Revolution was fed by thousands of trains from the North of England.

I worry that today's skinny-jeaned youth won't get the same thrills from their corporate-sponsored gigs at the O2 Dome as we had from these gothic underworlds, with their great brick arches, and mazes of UV-lit corridors. The idea that dark, satanic Turnmills is to become a set of trendy offices, where designers in thick-framed glasses will have brainstorming sessions, is truly depressing.

Though perhaps not quite as depressing as the way that I've obviously turned into a dismal old nineties nostalgist, moaning about how the youth of today don't know how to have fun. If anyone spots me putting on an Underworld album and telling a bemused teenager that it's what PROPER music sounds like, please have me shipped off to the Ministry of Sound immediately to remind me just how horrible the superclubs often were.

Underground but not Undercover

You'd think it unlikely that anything could make London's Tube commuters more frustrated or irate but, for a while there, it looked as though London Transport was going to ban nudes too by censoring a poster of Venus wearing nothing but a knowing look as part of an advertising campaign for the Royal Academy's Cranach show. Luckily they have relented 'given its context' - thank goodness for that, imagine the tedium of just having Mayor Ken's 'Poems on the Underground' as company on your way to work�

So much art, so little space

Nigella knows how to whip up something out of nothing and husband Charles Saatchi is certainly not just sitting around eating her choco-hoto-pots either. Nope, he thought he'd take on the Tate Modern (as you do) by opening a new art gallery in Chelsea. Saatchi has already got a couple of shows in the pipeline for when he opens in spring - contemporary Chinese art, new US artists, Indian art - you better watch this space!

There's a storm brewing!

Us Brits just love to chat weather - bemoaning the great British summertime, going camping in a lake of mud and what we're especially fond of is when the whole rail system grinds to a halt because the wind has blown some leaves onto the track. Well, now we can expostulate about the climate to our hearts' content at the Museum of London with a new exhibition about our weather, appropriately titled 'Weather Permitting' - it's brilliantly quirky and informative and a great way to spend a rainy summer's day when it opens in June.

A Diamond in the Drink

content@LondonTown.com — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It was a bad week for boozing Britain as reports just out show that our national partiality for getting slightly sozzled has escalated out of control. The news will hardly come as a shock to anyone who has been out in Soho on a Friday night. More surprising is that you can spend �35,000 on a single drink.

Lucky, lucky, lucky Kylie was given the (world's most expensive?) gold leaf encrusted cocktail at her post-Brits bash while hundreds of her guests were left stranded on the pavement outside, struggling to get in. What could possibly give a mere cocktail such a hefty price tag, you'd be forgiven for asking. Well, since you ask: Louis XII cognac, half a bottle of Cristal Rose champagne, brown sugar, Angostura bitters, oh and an 11-carat diamond ring at the bottom. It comes delivered not just by any old barman but a barman flanked by two security guards. How delicious.

This was certainly one of the more glamorous alcohol-related headlines in a week when intoxication reports grew more alarmist each day. "More than half of 13-year-olds have drunk alcohol", and "The BMA says Britain is in middle of alcohol 'epidemic'" and then "BMA hypocrites want to extend their HQ licensing hours", daily headlines informed us. Reading the small print, apparently, women in their thirties and forties are to be the target of a government anti-drinking advertising campaign, warning of the risks of breast cancer or liver failure. Yikes. I was deeply concerned about the teenagers downing cider in the park a minute ago. Now I'm more worried about my own levels of fermented grape juice consumption.

So what if I have a chilled glass of Pinot Grigio in the evenings? Admittedly it's more like every evening plus a couple more on the weekends - topped up by a few very large vodkas if I'm having a big night out every couple of weekends. Still, where's the harm in that? Everyone else is doing it. Of course I'm not completely complacent or unaware of the potential damage it can do - on a purely superficial level (though admittedly not the most important) is the one I'll almost certainly notice first, it's terribly ageing.

But I did manage to ditch the white wine witch recently - for a month anyway. On the advice of my acupuncturist, I spent four weeks on the wagon, not a single drop of the special brew passed my lips. I surprised myself, who knew I had such deep-reaching levels of self-control. But once I'd started it was easy. The hard part wasn't not drinking, it was not drinking and having a life. In fact, the only discernable difference was an allergy to going out.

Sitting in the pub nursing a cranberry juice is possibly the least amount of fun a girl can have on a night out. Dinner parties aren't exactly a barrel of laughs either without a Chardonnay to act as social lubricant. The challenge was finding things to do that didn't revolve around a glass of crisp, dry white. Trips to the cinema increased, tea and coffee dates replaced cocktails and cavorting in clubs. In short, I became more staid and sensible (read old and boring) in one dry month than I had in the previous drink sodden twelve. And, guess what? I didn't come away with renewed energy, my complexion didn't glow and not one single person asked me if I'd been away on holiday.

In an attempt to curb our alcoholic excesses, the super of the supermarkets, Tesco's, has proposed that the government step in to stop their two-for-one cut price offers on bottles of wine. The pubs and bars have already abandoned it, now this spells the end of happy hour down at Waitrose too. So, what's left to look forward to? Saddo night at the bingo? Give me a �35,000 cocktail any day.

A Woman's Work

The first female Serjeant at Arms has been appointed to the House of Commons almost 600 years after Henry V inaugurated the role in Parliament. Jill Pay will be up-to-speed on all security matters and she'll get to carry a mace and a sword (presumably just for show and not for security matters). The 40-strong security team, who the new serjeant will be in charge of, is jokingly referred to as "the men in tights" because of their uniform of breeches, stockings and buckled shoes - all primed and ready for action then!

One is not Amused!

News just in: Prince Charles does not want to live in a high-rise block, even if it's the penthouse. The future king has attacked towering skyscrapers blighting London's skyline, in one case threatening to overshadow the true tower - the Tower of London - with a 160-metre skyscraper. Even the views from Clarence House and his mother's pad Buckingham Palace could be obscured and what would one do then?

In-flight Entertainment

Forget 007 doing loop-the-loops and mortal combat in the skies above London; this is more handbags at dawn air hostess style. British Airways is said to be incensed at Bond producers signing a second deal with rival Virgin Atlantic - BA even cut the scene of Sir Richard Branson walking through an airport in its in-flight showings of 'Casino Royale' so 'brace' yourself for even more toys being shown the emergency exit as new Bond film 'Quantum of Solace' shoots skyward.

People Wanted for Plinth

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

If the latest proposal by Antony 'spot the' Gormley goes ahead, Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth will become a living sculpture, with 8,760 people standing on top of the column over the course of a year. This is just a proposal at the moment so his work currently looks like a mini plinth surrounded by a safety net - as if some unseen trapeze artist is swinging dangerously overhead - but the idea is an entertaining one, not least because it must be giving the health and safety sticklers the jitters.

Identifying one of Gormley's statues on the London skyline became a favourite pastime for Londoners last year. Wandering over Blackfriars Bridge or sauntering along the South Bank gained an added purpose not to mention artistic merit with Gormley's larger than lifesize statues to seek out. Raising our collective gaze from our shoes skyward helped too to lift the spirits.

Gormley's plinth proposal is an altogether more democratic piece of public art. Instead of bronze casts of Gormley's own body taking the limelight, Joe Public will get to act as the art. The idea is that each person - chosen by lottery - will be allocated their own hour up there, alongside the lions and famous bronze military men. They'll, literally, be put on a pedestal in one of London's most prominent squares - and can claim to have stood where David Beckham once did (well, where his effigy did, but still...). The offers are sure to come flooding in.

The successful volunteers will be allowed to do whatever they want - which is the point at which I hear health and safety taking a sharp intake of breath. Who knows what kind of 'X Factor' rejects will make their way up there, keen to vent their frustration at Simon Cowell's cruel rejection and inability to see their talent? It could be opening the floodgates for every slightly delusional and certifiably unhinged wannabe to give their doesn't-bear-repeating audition another go.

Whereas previously only conquering generals and governors were honoured with a place on a plinth in Trafalgar Square, now anyone could be elevated to that status - if only for an hour. It's the logical conclusion of the democratisation of our public spaces, an inclusive measure and one that we're seeing more of. Just around the corner, Leicester Square, home of London's movie premieres, is set for a �18.5 million makeover and, in a case of reality imitating reality TV, how that money spent is up to us. Yes, folks, the decision is yours - let's just hope it's not one of those dodgy phone lines where your vote doesn't actually get counted but you will, don't you fear, get charged for it anyway.

Leaving aside its cinemas and some truly awful chain food outlets, the square is to become a centre of culture, music and performance. Really? Can we dare to hope that the tacky pizza places, burger joints and bars I wouldn't be seen dead in will be ripped down in favour of creating an altogether more sophisticated ambiance? Get voting now and we can make it happen.

Hang on a minute, on closer inspection, we can have our say but only on the green bit in the middle (it's too much of a stretch to describe it as parkland) - oh, and the half price ticket booth. The artist's impression of how it might look has fountains and some grass� so pretty much what's there now. Then there's talk of a white granite 'ribbon' seat. All this for a mere �18.5 million. A bargain.

A Little Premature, Some Might Say

Well, this is one that's sure to provoke a reaction. A new play titled 'The Death of Margaret Thatcher' is coming to the Courtyard Theatre in February to examine the potential impact of this event. Lord Tebbit has been quoted as saying 'Margaret Thatcher is not dead' and then mutters something about her being reinstated at Number 10, whereas playwright Tom Green simply thinks that it will be interesting when she does die, which is presumably why he wrote the play!

The Face of Theatre

We love a crumbly old building - it speaks of our heritage and we can still see the beauty in any church/theatre/palace/old ruin so we get a little uppity when we're told they need a bit of work. But, apparently, it's not just a bit of work - West End theatres need a whopping �250m of repairs to drag them into the 21st century. Still, theatregoers don't seem to mind with show attendances reaching record numbers last year.

You'd Expect a Mansion for That Price

A 'flat-pack' home being installed at the Tate Modern certainly won't solve the affordable housing shortage. Designed by architect Jean Prouve in the 1950s to solve the housing problem in France's African colonies, it was too pricey to provide homes to a mass market - and that was before it acquired its �2.5m price tag at auction in New York. It was discovered, complete with bullet holes, in Brazzaville, Congo and it has now been elevated to 'Art' status on the South Bank with an entourage of highly-skilled workmen, or maybe artists, to put it back together.

Boo! Hiss!

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this week, Arts Council head Peter Hewitt put on the year's least popular stage show in living memory.

His matinee at the Young Vic in Ken Livingstone's "We're Cutting All Your Funding and Spending it on the Olympics" met with a chorus of boos from an audience that included Sir Ian McKellen, Kevin Spacey, Joanna Lumley, Richard Briers, Caroline Quentin, Sheila Hancock and Jonathan Pryce. Sheffield Theatre's director Sam West even leapt onto stage to express his disapproval.

It's not just regional theatres that are suffering from the cuts - Richmond's Orange Tree is losing nearly a fifth of its funding, and The Bush is set to suffer a potentially fatal 40% cut.

And yet� in a couple of weeks, the giant Lyttleton Theatre at the National, a tenth of whose funding would probably keep the Bush going for a decade is to put on a production of Peter Handke's 'The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other', which they describe as:

"Twenty-seven actors, 450 characters and no dialogue: a play without words by the great experimental figure of European theatre."

To you this might mean very little: an easy decision to steer well clear of the National Theatre for a month or so and rave reviews in The Guardian and Time Out to read and shake your head at. It's a little tougher on those of us who occasionally get called upon to write reviews, since there's always a risk of having to actually sit through the bloody thing, trying to think of something nice to say about it, since it's clearly Art.

Bur more importantly, this kind of grimly self-important theatrical navel-gazing is a quite extraordinary way to spend a subsidy. No dialogue? 450 characters? Could you not just sit on Eros and watch the tourists bumping into each other around Piccadilly Circus to get that kind of entertainment? And then there's opera, which currently absorbs about a sixth of London's arts budget so that fat hedge fund managers can take a break from their mistresses and treat their wives to a night of exquisitely tasteful boredom. Or contemporary dance, which is either dull or pornographic. And while I'm quite happy with the latter, I'm not sure I really need quite so much of my income tax to be spent on it.

The process by which theatres' subsidies are calculated currently makes about as much sense as a Beckett monologue. I propose a simpler method: for every use of the word 'abstract', 'experimental', 'ground-breaking', 'avant garde', or 'wordless' in a review of a show, the theatre gets 1% of its subsidy passed on to a smaller venue. And 'physicality', 'serio-comic' and 'radical' count for double. Problem solved.

Off the streets, into the Dungeon!

A controversial idea bandied about for the London Dungeon's Jack the Ripper show would take reality entertainment to new levels. Think 'celebrity judge' Billie Piper, star of 'Secret Diary of a Call Girl', think prostitutes on London's streets, think auditions and you've got a ready-made formula or recipe for disaster - yes, that's right, real-life prostitutes to become the imaginary ones in the show�what is it they say about all publicity being good publicity?

The Art of Shopping

Sometimes it looks as if Selfridges' famous window displays are works of art and now they actually are. But, of course, the luxury department store's latest display is nothing to do with publicity and everything to do with the art (spot the cynic). Charitably, they are giving this space, named the Wonder Windows, as a showcase for up-and-coming young artists who might otherwise not get such a prime exhibition spot.

Muscling In

It seems that an 'alien species' of mussels in the Thames are flexing their�er, shells and threatening native species. Apart from being surprised that anything can actually survive in the Thames, there has apparently been a zebra mussel invasion, according to the Marine Conservation Society, which is surprising as they come from south-east Russia. The greatest danger from the little blighters is to the depressed river mussel - no wonder they're depressed!

Tate That - A Hirst for Art

content@LondonTown.com — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Anyone else think that the proposed extension to the Tate Modern resembles nothing more than the final stages in a game of Jenga? After the universal acclaim architects Herzohg and Meuron received for their subtle sympathetic conversion of the Bankside Power Station into one of the world's great galleries, the Swiss architects have reverted to behaving like Modern Architects should, and decided to add a massive children's plaything to a dignified and graceful building.

The extra space is going to be used for restaurants (fair enough - with no entry fee, they need to find other ways to raise money), spaces for performance art (shudder), and 'extra space for the gallery's expanding collection.' This also seemed like a pretty silly idea, given that, as much as we love the Tate, it is one of the most enormous man-made spaces we've ever encountered. However, this week's news that Damien Hirst is to donate four new works to the gallery (with Tate director Nicholas Serota smugly hinting at more to come from his contemporaries) puts a new spin on it.

A cynic might point out that at Hirst's age he probably didn't really fancy having a huge formaldehyde tank containing a sliced and pickled cow in his living room, nor a canvas made from fly corpses over the mantelpiece. Still, it's a generous gesture by any standard: even with a personal fortune thought to hover around the �200 million mark, �4 million of art is not to be sneezed at.

As Saatchi's energy has declined - almost certainly a result of the enormous meals Nigella keeps feeding him - the artists in his stable seem to be rejoining the world of publicly-owned galleries. If we are to have a whole new batch of Lucasses, Chapmans and Whitereads, it seems entirely apt to put them in a flashy, self-indulgent and hyperbolically modern building. And maybe, like Hirst and his contemporaries, the Young British Artists who scandalised the tabloids with 'Sensation', it will come to be as comforting and as soothing a part of our national artistic landscape as the National Gallery.

Climb Every... Office Block

As Christmas consumerism reached its peak, a mystery climber scaled 20 storeys of a 27-storey retail and office centre in Victoria Street, Westminster, without the aid of ropes or safety equipment. Amazed shoppers and workers looked on as the human Spiderman mounted the summit and turned to wave at crowds below.

It's Hammer Time at Hotel

Collectors are gearing up to grab a piece of history as London's Savoy closes its doors and auctions off its fixtures and fittings to clear the decks for a �100 million refurbishment. The 3,000 items - from an oak dance floor and a 24-light chandelier that illuminated notables such as Noel Coward and Anna Pavlova, to the entire contents of the Monet suite where celebrities from Harry S Truman to Charlie Chaplin stayed- are expected to raise up to �1 million.

Whacko JackO2

Rumour has it that 2008 will see Michael Jackson moonwalk it over to London to perform a series of shows in the city's mammoth 20,000-seater, O2 arena. If speculation is to be believed, the pint-sized celeb will hot-foot it to the capital to follow in the equally as nimble footsteps of purple-prancer Prince who performed a 21-day residency at the recently revitalised venue last summer.

Christmas Shopping

content@LondonTown.com — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This year, like every year, I thought I'd get organised and do my Christmas shopping early. Wouldn't it be great to avoid that last minute dash around the shops, I thought. In fact, I'll be so clever, the internal dialogue in my head went on, I'll avoid the shops altogether. Instead, I'll do everything online; it's all the rage these days. No bruised ankles and frayed tempers for me. Or so I thought.

It's four shopping days till Christmas and I still haven't got half way down my 'to buy' list. Dammit. It's not even a very long list, just immediate family, so why has the predictable annual panic taken hold?

Looking on the bright side, the sales have already started - which might, if I'm honest, explain my reluctance to get organised and do my Christmas shopping six weeks in advance. I blame my inner skin-flint. It's like a test of patience between the shops and the shoppers to see who can hold out the longest. So I've stared them out, beaten them at their own game and the prices have been slashed. Now I've got four days of running around the shops grabbing all the bargains before collapsing in a heap under the tree.

The only snag is I suspect I'm not the only bright spark who's had this idea. A quick straw poll of my friends confirms this. Not one of my equally cavalier friends can meet up for a sneaky pre-Christmas drink, they're all too busy going� you guessed it, last minute shopping. "Am just sadly defeated by my list of things to do," emails one friend, cancelling our drinks date the very day we were meant to be meeting up, "and I haven't even started on buying Christmas presents either. Panic." Under normal circumstances I'd be annoyed by the last minute notice but, as it happens, I couldn't have put it better myself.

Some clever websites have made my Christmas shopping job much easier by publishing lists of the sales and where best to bag a bargain. Top Shop, hmm� I don't think I'll find anything for Auntie Judy in there but it'd be such a shame to let those half price party dresses by Kate Moss go to someone else. And so much better to get them now, before they've been trashed by everyone else riffling through them. Wait until after Christmas and you'll only be left with the man-handled scraps.

Walking down Oxford Street from H & M to Zara en route to Debenhams, I spot the 50 per cent off signs up at French Connection. No matter that I already have five bags hanging about my person. Suddenly it strikes me that I haven't actually bought a single thing for anyone else. Some quick mental arithmetic and I realise my present cost per head will have to be trimmed to take account for my reckless and entirely selfish present purchasing. What can you actually get for �10? Not much, I can tell you.

By five o'clock the Saturday night before Christmas I'll be throwing the budget out the window and panic buying three-for-one offers from Boots. And don't forget, the very day after all those presents that have been so agonised over have been ripped into (and soon discarded), the January sales begin�

Merry Christmas everyone!

Trafalgar's Birds Dropping

Is Trafalgar Square's resident pigeon population starving to death? Tests carried out on five of the area's dead birds revealed "empty gizzards" and "poor bodily condition", which the Pigeon Action Group state is the direct result of a feeding ban implemented by mayor Ken Livingstone. Since it became illegal to feed the birds in 2003 the number of pigeons in the square has dropped from 4,500 to 400. A candlelit vigil held in the square marked the demise of the capital's most famous flying rodents.

Hanger Lanes of Horror

With its multiple intersections, complex lane markings and excessive filtering system, West London's infamous Hanger Lane Gyratory has been officially named Britain's most terrifying road junction. Following Spaghetti Junction in second place, Marble Arch and Elephant and Castle ranked 3rd and 4th for motoring fear factor.

Tate Gains Weight

With the promise of a �50 million investment from the Government, London's Tate Modern is on course for a �215 million extension in time for the opening of the 2012 Olympics. With 11 floors, the proposed Jenga-style structure on the South Bank aims to ease overcrowding and offer more space for the gallery's extensive collection.

Mind the Gap

content@LondonTown.com — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

In the early nineteen-eighties, my Aunt Holly was station manager at King's Cross. It was one of those days when it seems like travelling by tube is a weird Kafkaesque torture, devised by a chippy Northener as a punishment for everyone living in London. After ten hours of insanely hard work, in a station whose platforms were packed a dozen deep with furious commuters, all of them hurling abuse at any LT employee they saw, she got on the tannoy and announced:

"We really are sorry for all these delays. If it's any consolation, this is as horrible for us as it is for you."

I think I might have been rather pleased to hear this if I'd been a commuter that day. Holly's bosses, however, were not. She received the mother of all bollockings, missed a promotion, and it hung over her, to some extent, for the rest of her career,

So I have a certain personal sympathy for 'voice of the tube' Emma Clarke, stitched up by the Mail on Sunday, and then sacked for including some spoof announcements on her website, . The MP3s on her site offer the sort of very mild humour that anyone who has ever blogged about London's transport network ventures approximately 3 times every column: Americans talking loudly, pervy men staring at women's chests, and so on. If London Underground hadn't suffered such a substantial sense of humour failure, they would have been heard by practically nobody - unlike her most famous works ('Please stand clear of the doors', and her biggest hit to date, 'mind the gap') which have been heard more often, by more people, than anything by Elvis or Michael Jackson.

Hopefully the fifteen minutes of fame she's had from this will help to get her some more work elsewhere, but above all, the wave of sympathy she's had from commuters all over the Capital should give LT a chance to shake up those announcements anyway. Add some humour, or maybe bring in a few celebrities. It would be almost impossible to keep up that rush hour rage if Stephen Fry's cuddly tones were informing you of 'passenger action at Oval', for example, or if the lovable Geordie voiceover from Big Brother was letting you know that it was 'Signal failures causing delays to the Eustuurn soorvice".

I think the best solution would be 'King's X Factor', a nationwide talent search for people to deliver the perfect announcement, concluding with Rhydian going head to head with Chico in a grand 'The next station is Theydon Bois' finale. Emma Clarke and my Aunt Holly could be judges.

Track and Feline

Work on the Olympic site is continuing apace - good news if that 2012 deadline is to be met. But who's thinking of the poor cats who may get stranded there? More than 5,500 people it seems. That's how many have signed a petition to let animal welfare workers onto the site to assess the number of moggies who might be there risking any number of their nine lives dodging the bulldozers.

Double, double, toil and trouble

Patrick Stewart, starring in the title role, and Rupert Goold, directing, did the double for Macbeth at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards announced this week. The bloody Scottish play showed no signs of its reputation for bringing bad luck and it was smiles all round. Winning best actress was Anne-Marie Duff for her Joan Of Arc at the National Theatre. This officially makes Anne-Marie and husband James McAvoy one of Britain's most talented and best loved luvvie couples - it's all a far cry from the 'Shameless' days.

The Plinth and the Kapoor

Tracey Emin's unmade bed could be the next 'artwork' to adorn the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Let's just hope vigilant community officers don't mistake it for that of a homeless man and encourage it to "move along now". A shortlist of six artists has been drawn up which sees Emin pitted against 'Angel of the North' creator Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor - who put a giant gramophone horn in the Tate's Turbine Hall; try doing that on a plinth.

London On A Tray

content@LondonTown.com — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Forget diamonds, butlers are a girl's best friend. They're there to pick out your outfit for you, iron your newspaper and do all the heavy lifting - not forgetting the important duty of answering the door; well, it can be very tiresome getting up, operating the handle and putting on the welcoming smile. The modern day butler is also on hand to solve any quandary, from dating advice to what to wear with those skinny jeans. Sweetly, he would never ever say the skinny jeans should be left at the back of the wardrobe.

Have you noticed though how few of these modern day heroes are around today? Not a lot. I sadly haven't been keeping one in the space under my stairs and, come to think of it, haven't seen one since the Jeeves and Wooster days.

Luckily, and just in time for Christmas shopping - so exhausting - Regent Street is putting on a weekend butler service to help alleviate the shopping stress for us damsels in search of some retail comfort. Next time you're stranded between Massimo Dutti and Max Mara, desperately trying to hail a cab, get the butler to do it for you. It'll save you from the indignity of flailing your arms around in public.

The team of seven (any connection to the dwarfs, do you think?) smartly uniformed helpers would put Santa's elves to shame. Working hard to find your perfect presents, they can advise on where to get those Wedgwood plates for gran, Austin Reed suit for him or the iPod phone for the luckiest person on your list - surely the most longed for gift this Christmas. The personal shopper just got replaced.

It's all wonderfully decadent and old fashioned but it doesn't quite go far enough. What I'd like to see is free rickshaw rides between the shops - walking is even more tiring than getting the credit card out. And what with London Transport costs, it'd be so much more helpful than someone just pointing you in the right direction. What? I have to walk there? How about some refreshments on the way too; butlers carrying silver trays of mince pies and champagne are what's called for - then London really would be a capital worth coming to. Prince Harry might even be tempted to leave Chelsea (not Chelsy - not so soon after the reunion, anyway) and head to Regent Street for a spot of crimbo shopping with the hoi polloi.

Holidaying in some smart places, as you do, one of the most luxurious things you can do is have a bath drawn by the butler. Think it's silly? Honestly, if you get the opportunity, try it. The closest I can compare it to is having a cup of tea made for you. Tastes so much better than when you make it yourself doesn't it? It's one of those things that's just true. Like that damn elusive sock that gets lost in the wash leaving you with a draw full of mis-matching odd ones. No one knows why it's true, it just is.

If watching Britain's most famous living butler, Paul Burrell, bush tucker trialling in the jungle has tarnished your image of these honourable gentlemen, think again. Or, better still, stroll down Regent Street and have your shopping carried for you. Next stop, Bond Street.

Ewan Sells Out

Demand for tickets to see Othello at the Donmar Warehouse has become so feverish that tickets are going for upwards of �100 for the sold out show. The excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor plays the title role and Kelly Reilly is Desdemona but surely the main attraction is Ewan McGregor who stars as Iago. Last seen on the London stage in the award-winning 'Guys & Dolls', McGregor returns to the stage after a two-year break. Prior to that he last trod the boards in 2000 in the West End production of 'Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against The Eunuchs'. No wonder tickets are exchanging hands for five times their original price.

(Don't) Chew On This

A food supplier delivered rancid meat to top London hotels, government offices and hospitals including the Treasury, Westminster School and The Dorchester and Claridges hotels. A former employee of the now defunct McLaren Foods, described the rotten meat they would deliver in the following delightful terms: "Every time you opened the door it would hit you straight away." On one occasion Claridges sent back an order of 250 sirloin steaks because they were green. Steak well done, anyone?

Who's Rubbish at Recycling?

In the same week that Greenwich was named the greenest borough in the city - and Tower Hamlets shamed as the least green (making it the brownest?) - it was revealed that more than half of central Government offices have no idea if they even have a recycling scheme at all. Not only that, Britain lags behind the rest of EU on recycling household waste; on average, more than a fifth (approaching 23%) gets recycled - one of the lowest rates in Europe. With this in mind Tower Hamlets' pitiful 11.8% is indeed rubbish.

Leaving the Station

content@LondonTown.com — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100

In a couple of weeks' time, the first Eurostar train will pull into the gloriously restored St. Pancras Station. It's a new route which shaves 20 minutes or so off the trip to Paris (or Brussels, if you're that way inclined, though I don't know anybody who ever has been) and the building is one of the absolute gems of London's Victorian architectural heritage. St. Pancras is the only station in the Capital that could ever match up to the grandeur of Paris' glorious Gare du Nord at the other end, and it's quite right that this is the first view that foreign visitors should have of the city (though immediately descending to the rat-tastic labyrinth of King's Cross Tube might be a bit of a shock after such an immaculate first impression).

It does, however, beg the question of what on Earth we're going to do with the old Eurostar terminal at Waterloo. The building cost �130 million and won both the RIBA Sterling Prize and the Mies van der Rohe Award when it opened. Just 13 years on, it's to be closed down, unless some viable use can be found for it. There were some vague mutterings about turning it into a shopping centre, until it was quite rightly pointed out that there would be a limited demand amongst retailers for spots at the wrong end of a 400 metre-long boomerang-shaped glass corridor. Hiking stores might be able to get customers in, but I can't imagine the average British shopper trudging all the way up there.

The answer lies in one of the other unfortunate consequences of the new St. Pancras. The frantic gentrification of Soho and Shoreditch made King's Cross the last genuinely sordid neighbourhood in Central London. Massage parlours, mad tramps and massive warehouse raves gave it a grimy feel that's hard to find anywhere else. All of this atmosphere is in the process of being driven away. The half-a-dozen nightclubs that occupy King's Cross Goods Yard are being closed, and zero tolerance policing is cleaning up the streets.

Meanwhile, Waterloo, for all its incredible theatres, concert halls and cinemas, always has a slightly soulless, central-planning feel to it. It's like a Thames-side Milton Keynes - lots of exciting concrete shapes, but the people look a bit lost.

So to kill two birds with one stone, let's turn one end of that Eurostar terminal into a massive nightclub, a great snaking three-room extravaganza, with those clear roof panels so you can see the sun rise. And at the top end, we can have a really top-class homeless shelter for all the victims of the King's Cross gentrification, giving those hookers and hobos somewhere to rest their heads after a long day's work adding spice to the Southbank's excessively spotless streets.

Smokin'

Halle Berry must have wondered if it was a stunt show just for her as swathes of black smoke billowed across Leicester Square on the night of the premiere of her new film 'Things We Lost In The Fire'. It must have also seemed a bit too close to (her Malibu) home, where fires have been raging. The (just off) Leicester Square fire was actually the result of the kitchen of restaurant Apogee going bang but the old adage must still ring true for Halle and co - all publicity is good publicity!

1966 was a good year�

Whether you were at home, down the pub or trying to hide under your duvet and pretend it wasn't happening, you couldn't have escaped the BIG sporting weekend (footie, rugby and that Hamilton bloke driving very fast!) It's lucky us Brits are a resilient lot (or used to decades of losing) - the fact that we crashed and burned in all three events didn't seem to faze us, we just carried on drinking - London was heaving with pint-swigging 'we've done quite well' fans.

A Track through London

The idea might seem like a bit of a dream at the moment but thoughts of a London Grand Prix have once again resurfaced, thanks to Formula One veteran Bernie Ecclestone. I can imagine tourists snapping the not-so-hairpin turn at Oxford Circus (well, people pose proudly at the one in Monte Carlo) and remembering the straight between Top Shop and Selfridges as the place where Hamilton sped to victory - oh, maybe it is just a dream.

The Sky's the Limit

content@LondonTown.com — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100

London will get its first Supertall in 2011. Even if you don't have your architects' dictionary to hand you can imagine what this means. One very tall building. The Shard, or 'Shard of Glass' to give it its official title, at London Bridge Tower will be the first building in the UK to break the 1000ft barrier, dwarfing the current tallest record holder, 1 Canada Square, standing at a measly 771ft. If you suffer from vertigo, look away now.

If, however, you enjoy a 180 degree panorama, you'll have plenty of places to choose from in the next five years. With 40 towers rising over 300ft currently planned, or proposed, within London - and 20 of those within half a mile of the Thames - London's skyline is set to get bigger but I can't help wondering, is it for the better?

Currently, London is a wonderful higgledy-piggledy hotchpotch of houses. There's a mish-mash of Medieval mixed with modern, Georgian squares and Victorian terraces with some truly awful 1960s blocks thrown in. But even they have their place - the Hayward Gallery and Royal Festival Hall blocks have become beloved, just another freckle on the face of London's idiosyncratic cityscape. Perhaps not surprisingly though it's some of those sixties eye sores which are being disposed of to make way for the new breed of big buildings.

Superstar architects like Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano have been drafting ever higher scrapers in the space race for the sky. Piano bills his Shard as "a small vertical town" built to house 7,000 people. It all sounds terribly futuristic, like something out of a sci-fi adventure where monorails carry people around vertically and horizontally. Shudder.

Idly scrolling through the forum on www.skyscrapercity.com the enthusiastic chorus of 'couldn't it be bigger?' began to unsettle me. Alarm bells were beginning to ring. At the risk of sounding like a reactionary, isn't pretty damn tall tall enough? Why does everything - from burgers to buildings - have to be super-sized?

These neck-craning buildings have already been given some imaginative titles. Sounding more like a hair-raising ride you'd find at Alton Towers than an office block, soon names like "Helter-skelter" and the "Pinnacle" will become part of the national language just as the "Gherkin" already has. These two great peaks sounding for all the world like a white knuckle experience will stretch upwards from Bishopsgate. Joining them are Richard Rogers' "Cheesegrater" at 122 Leadenhall Street, and Raphael Vinoly's "Walkie-Talkie" nearby at 20 Fenchurch Street. The City's current landmarks like Lloyds and the old NatWest Tower will be looked down on by their new lofty neighbours.

Sitting on the fifth floor of LondonTown towers, I enjoy a wonderfully elevated view over Leicester Square, looking towards Trafalgar Square I can see Nelson on top of his column. So comparing this view five floors up to the dizzying vista from the Shard's proposed 72nd floor is enough to make my head spin. Vertiginous doesn't seem a tall enough word. No wonder they added the 'super' in front. The plan to give public access to the 72nd floor is at least a commendable one - once it's built we can all enjoy the view from the top. Though let's not forget unless you're inside them, these buildings will block out - not enhance - your views of the city.

The worry isn't so much the touching-the-void nature of this club, it's the sheer number of towering blocks that are proposed. Though construction has yet to begin on most, we are set for these towering buildings to rise up from the City to Waterloo and from Paddington to Islington. If just a handful were going up it might be quite fun - the silly, fairground names alone are entertaining enough. While the designs vary from spectacular to remarkably unremarkable the views will, no doubt, be breathtaking - equivalent to a rotation on the London Eye. No, the problem I have with the scrapers set to dominate our skyline is that there are so many of them. Get ready for the invasion of the sunlight catchers. Let's just hope they don't suffer the fate of the sixties signature blocks - and get turned to rubble a mere fifty years later.

You've got to be cracked!

You'd think if you were going to the Tate Modern to see the latest installation (Doris Salcedo's crack in the floor) you might know to step delicately over it, whilst obviously muttering about what it's saying about racial division. There are even leaflets warning against getting too close to 'the art' but three hapless visitors just walked on by and tripped into the crack, which runs the entire 167-metre length of the Turbine Hall!

Youth on her side?

This is no Harry Enfield-esque Tory Boy - she may be 18 but Emily Benn is (obviously) female, a Labour candidate and appears to be well-versed in the art of political manoeuvring (she is Tony Benn's granddaughter after all). This young lady from Croydon does not see her age as a disadvantage, far from it, and is intent on running in the next general election. Watch out Gordon�

Budge over, you're in my lane

Any Londoner will tell you that the M25 is the dullest motorway on the planet (after all, it does go round in a circle). Factor in Friday night rush hour traffic and you've got a motorist's nightmare, so any proposal to alleviate the gridlock is welcomed with horns hooting and engines revving. The scheme being considered is to open up the hard shoulder as an extra lane when things get chock-a-block - should work like clockwork�